when one day turns into soon

Where we are at

Author: Emma Jones

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It's been a while since an update, but our lives somehow turned into being constantly "busy". There are very few days now where we don't have a list of things to accomplish and get done. This season of life is both exciting and discouraging. It’s exciting because we can look back and see that we made the decision to pursue this in 2017 and we’re still working towards the same goal. The discouraging part has been realizing how long all of this takes. We knew at the beginning that we were a minimum of four years out due to graduating college. I graduated early and Brandon is graduating a semester early, but there is still so much to be done. We both have full time jobs and looking ahead we realize that somehow we’re going to have to manage completing our training and beginning to fundraise. There is no definitive answer on how long all of that will take. It could be an quick six months or it could be three years. That has been one of the most challenging parts of all of this for me because I am a planner through and through.

Over the past year or so, Brandon and I have grown in so many ways both individually and together. Watching Brandon learn and grow in his Bible classes has been amazing. Suddenly in the past year his ability to lead, preach, evangelize, and love others burst forth abundantly. It is so encouraging to see his passion in sharing the gospel and to know that one day (Lord willing) he will help lead a village to Christ. We also were able to buy our first home in September! God has blessed us so abundantly in all of our endeavors throughout our relationship. I never would have imagined achieving all of this. Our relationship has also grown tremendously. As we grow and change as people, we’ve had to learn how to communicate about everything and understand how the other person is feeling. One thing that is such a blessing is that we always seem to be on the same page about everything.

Since we got married so young, we struggled for a while to find a good community. We didn’t quite fit in with college groups or with young professionals or with married couples with kids. It still is a weird place to be in. We are married, own a home, are in college, and are 20 and 21 years old. Thankfully, we’ve found a good balance of community around us as we are able to relate to so many different groups of people. We are a part of a college/young adult Bible study that Brandon leads, a small group at our church made up of some older married couples and young professionals, and we enjoy attending the marriage nights at our church where we get to meet other married couples and get wise advice from those married 20 years or more.

The next steps for us involve Brandon graduating at the end of this year and us figuring out a way to start training while maintaining a source of income as we begin to fundraise. We ask for your prayers that we may find a sending church soon. We love where we are at currently, but we realize that not every church has the same focus for their missions and outreach. Please pray that if one door closes, another one will open soon.