Valerie, Maverick and I are leaving to London to meet up with the Culture Shock Team London team tomorrow (Sunday, May 13) and we are EXCITED!! We have been looking forward for this trip for some time now and it's finally here! We knew the Culture Shock Team London 6 month mission trip was happening, but we didn't think we were going to be able to go, BUT God opened the doors! With us not planning on this trip happening for us, we did not get a financial plan set for us and the trip. Between the money we had in our Network 21 Missions missionary account and a few people giving to us when they heard we were going, we had just enough to purchase our tickets! That in itself is a miracle since we purchased the tickets so close to departure! 

With the exchange rate being 1.62 pounds to the 1.00 US dollar (as of today), we are still needing at least $1,500 for transportation, lodging, and living.If you would like to partner with us in a one-time gift, we would appreciated it! 

When we get back in June, we'll start our fundraising for us becoming full time missionaries, so if anyone feels lead to even start monthly gifts, that would help jump start our new journey! Along our new journey, we need as much prayer support as well.

If you choose to help out financially in any way, here is the link to donate! Thank you for your continued support! 
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Well, part of the Culture Shock Team London team has left for their 6 month adventure to London. This is the first group blog of the team and I wanted to share this with you. I will be posting more about the group and the team soon plus a HUGE update about my family and our new adventures! Stayed tuned!!
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When we get to the point in our life where we have to "growing up" or (in the words of my wife) act your age, we sometimes lose site of our inner child. Not only do we do this in our life's journey but sometimes in our spiritual journey as well.

One of the popular scriptures in maturing our spiritual and physical person is in 1 Corinthians 13:11 where is says "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (NKJV). We read this scripture and automatically think, "we need to stop messing around, live life perfect, speak a certain way, dress a certain way, hang out with certain people and/or Christian ONLY and do what mature Christians are suppose to do" and we lose site of our inner child. And now the question comes up "Why do we need our spiritual inner child if the scripture says we put away childish things?" Well the Bible also says in Matthew 18: 3 "...unless you are converted and become as little children, you will not by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." This could be confusing but if you think about it...it's pretty simple.

To put a little personal spin to this, when my son, Maverick, continues to get older and grow up, we will start liking things that are "age appropriate" and stop playing with the toys and stuff that he played with when he was younger. As Christian, our spiritual person needs to continue to move, change, adjust, and grow. When we do this, our spiritual person cannot with the "childish" things. We must strive for the next thing that God has for us and our spiritual person. But we are reminded in Matthew 18:3 that we have to keep the "Childlike Faith" to enter the kingdom. How do we continue to grow and mature in our spiritual person without losing the childlike faith part, our inner child? What this scripture is saying is that we don't need to get so caught up and so "spiritual" that we lose sight of the childlike faith we had when God first radically changed our life! 
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Well, when you open our website or blog site or whatever you want to call it, you see two different flyers or posters. These are two big things that Val and I are involved in and apart of. So, I figured that I'd write and blog kind of explaining it to whoever reads this.
Outreach2012 is an idea that came together starting with directors and board members of the non-profit organization (Network 21 Missions) that we work with. Ever since traveling to London a decade ago, they always wanted to have some kind of presence
m there or surrounding area of London. After we saw that the 2012 Summer Olympics were going to be in London, there was an immediate sense of urgency to start preparing and be there before, during and after the 2012 Olympics. So here is how Outreach2012 started an idea into an AMAZING team that is currently raising funds to go over there!

The Beginning...
Of course being here in the States made it (and still is) hard to get everything figured out. We met via phone, email, personal meetings with several people from the UK area, people here in the States with some kind of influence there in the UK, other organizations, etc about this idea and how in the world do we get started....and we got the same answer from about 90% of them, "That's an awesome idea and we want to be apart, let us know when you get it figured out!" Well, that didn't help since we were fishing for ideas and answers on how to get it started from them! We continued working on the idea of having a team in London during the Olympics. About a month or month and a half ago, we went from an idea to a reality with a team of 7 college-aged people! One Sunday morning during church, my sister-in-law felt like she needed to go to London. This in its self was a shock because she is a "home body", she hates being away from home for an extended period of time. So when she approached her dad (which is the director of Network 21 Missions) he was shocked. She continued to express her heart and feelings and after sharing this with us, we all knew this could be the beginning. To take one step back, when she was telling her dad about this, it came up taking a film crew and filming the trip. 
(Outline of the film crew: back in 2009, while Culture Shock Team 1 was out, we had an idea about filming the trips and edited for a possible TV show that we could be used for multiple purposes. #1 - marketed to TV channels to be used to help fund missions and ministries around the world, #2 - show all the different aspects of missions and the trips, #3 - show the different cultures around the world, and #4 -  encourage people to go on a missions trip.) 
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The last few years I have been reminded of how important prayer was in my life. Of course I know that my personal prayer time is super important, but I'm talking about other people keeping you, your family, your life situations and the things your involved in a part of their prayer life....Prayer Warriors or Prayer Supports. 

Which ever you choose to call it, it doesn't really matter. I like to use both terms but in two completely different context. I know sometimes in my life, my family and I need someone to "support" (help) us during their daily prayer sessions because we maybe be facing some roadblocks and spiritual crossroads during our day...but sometimes there are times we need someone to go to battle with us and for us. When life's roadblocks and crossroads turn into battle field of giants that we are facing and we can't do it alone.....we need the "warriors" behind and beside it helping us.

What brought me to this place and blog was this....when your growing up and finding your way in life, you don't really thing about this topic. If you grow up in church, you hear about prayer warriors and being someone's prayer supporter but never really process the topic because it's not "relevant" to you at the time...so you think. When you decide to actually grow up, do the college thing, get married and start being "family-minded", this topic kind of turns "relevant" to you. The reason why it's not "relevant" to us until we're that "family-minded" person is because we're too busy trying to be cool and doing stupid stuff not thinking it's stupid. While sitting here and reflecting on all the stupid stuff we did when we were young, I can clearly see times of my parents and family was praying for our safety. Even though I never had any crazy things happen to me, thank God, I can think of a few things with my family. 
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2010 Newsletter 10/11/2011
 
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