So, what does it take ... to get our family on a short term mission trip to Uganda?

Well, in all honesty, a bunch of crazy and a whole lot of God and many, many supporters!

For right now though, let us just focus on the financial part for a moment, since I am sure a lot of you are wondering:

Where does all the money go?


Right here:          


Preparations: This includes our passports, immunizations and
                         malaria preventative for all four of us, and a small
                         allowance for fund raising, i.e. postage, fliers ...)                    $ 3,900

Travel costs:  This includes our airline tickets, baggage fees,
                        entry visas, medical insurance, Lodging, food,
                        in country transportation and misc expenses                            $ 9,890


                        For a grand total of:                                                              $ 13,790

WOW, now that the cat is out of the bag ... let's talk about the variations and what would happen with any left over money.

First of all, some expenses are tentatively. As TAM is a very Young ministry and we are the first team from our church going to help with TAM in Uganda, there simply is no detailed protocol or handbook available to us.

Our immunization and malaria cost are variable and depend on our insurance and deductibles. Any of you having to ever deal with their insurance, know this may take a while before we will get clear answers. In the meantime we need to cover this to the full price. Airline tickets might vary a bit as well. right now we can get them for about $ 1,600/person but in a month or two they can be as high as $ 2,500/person. Yikes!!! So, we really need to get them as soon as funding gets there!

Another flexible amount is baggage fees, transportation and lodging. That all depends on how much donated supplies we can gather to take with us and if we are able to make all the trips planned while in Uganda. A 1/4 gallon of gas is currently costs about $ 1.60 so that's about $ 6.80/gallon, which explains why it is so costly to travel in Uganda. Oh, and you usually have to hire a driver as well!

Currently we have about $ 4,500 from our own money and roughly $ 550 in donations. That leaves us with $ 8,740 to be raised by the end of the month.

Why by the end of the month, you wonder? Well, quite frankly we really need to book our flights in order to get a good price on them. January, the time we are meant to be there, is right in the short dry season Uganda has and therefore the best time to go. TAM has recommended avoiding the rain season, as inner country travel might become impossible. TAM has to plan for our accommodations, arrangements have to be made with the airlines for extra freight, in country meetings scheduled, leave turned in and so forth.

If we can not reach the majority of the funding by end of November we will have to push our departure back until we reach funding and TAM can put us in.
Should we exceed needed funding, all proceeds will be given directly to TAM to by chairs and tables for the kindergarten.

All that said, what we really need is your support in praying for us! We would love for you to partner with us in praying for us.

All else will happen in his time and to his will, as is always better than ours!

Much love,

Marion

So, you guys are going to Uganda?!

As some of you may already have noticed, there have been a lot of things going on in our family this year. Last winter, I started to be more involved in our AWANA group and  Marion started going back to school full time to pursue a degree in International Studies and Education. This spring however our family felt led to make the decision to homeschool Lenah and Luke this year, and to focus our family on living in a more radical way, to get out of our comfort zones and to learn how to use our individual gifts in a better way.

Shortly after this we had the opportunity to learn how to do just that, as we met Alex Mutagubya, pastor at City Church of Luzira, Kampala and founder of Transform African Ministries (TAM). We got to hear about their ministries in Uganda and are excited about the work God is doing in Kampala. You can learn more about TAM and what they do by visiting http://transformafricanministries.org

We feel extremely blessed and honored to have been invited by TAM, and to be sent by Lake City Community Church, to go to the City Church in Luzira, Uganda and to help a little with one of their current projects and learn about all that God is doing through TAM in Uganda. We will be traveling to Kampala, tentatively around January 7th and will be staying with Alex and his family for about 3 weeks.

So who is going, you wonder? Well, all of us! That's right, Marion, Lenah, Luke and I.
We had not anticipated that, but after we put thought and prayer to it, we got a very clear call for all of us to go, as part of this trip is also to see what God has in mind with our family from here on out.

What exactly will we be doing over there? Well, one of TAMs ministries is to open a Kindergarten in January, for which the building is under way now. We and the kids will be helping with getting the offices and classrooms ready for the children and teachers to start. We hope to bring lots of the needed supplies with us, along with a library of books, tools and possibly some funds for furniture, as well as hoping to bring music and arts along for the little ones.

And in the midst of all this, we will also be visiting an orphanage and two “babies’ homes” in Kampala. Yes, God is working mightily in our hearts and we are very excited to explore this further as well.

Many of you might already know, that Marion is very passionate about tough topics. Therefore we will also be visiting the Kampala child detention center, and/or “Remand homes,” to learn how we might be used to help and to bring hope.

After all this excitement, we are planning to finish our vision trip with a visit to Murchison Falls Park to get a glimpse of some nature, meet the staff and rangers to learn firsthand about the current poaching issues, elephant protection  and if and how we can be globally involved in the efforts to bring change to this challenging situation.

Awesome things are under way and we will share all the details on the things to take, fundraisers, ways you can be involved and status updates with you as we get to each step. So follow us along here and on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/raykovitzuganda, for the latest news on all of this.

Things are happening so quickly and sometimes not in the prepared, pre-planned way we would have it. We are eager to follow the call and to be allowed to take part in his story and to see it unfold.

And so, this is where you come in. There is much anxiety surrounding all that it means to fly into Africa for the first time and with two children, and having only barely 4 months to prepare, so we would love your prayer support in seeing this come to life.

We have arrived at a trip total of $13,790 plus whatever we can raise to help send books, tools and help with school furniture (more detailed cost breakdown will be on the FB page). Our passports are under way, the vaccines started and flights are picked and ready to be booked as soon as we reach funding.

Please pray for our family for:

      ·         peace and faith that surpasses all understanding, as we follow God’s call.

·         help with the all the preparations and fundraisers.

·         Marion's health as we prepare and for all of us on the trip.

·         our hearts to be prepared and that we may be a blessing and bring glory to his name in all we do.

We are overwhelmed, joyful and excited to share this journey with you all. We are fully expecting and longing for our hearts to be completely broken and made anew in this.

 Lake City will be our sending church and we feel extremely blessed and grateful for this.

We would very much love for you to partner with us on this journey and covet your prayers. If you are inclined and able to help financially, you can do so by sending a check directly to our Church using the enclosed donation slip, or by checking our blog for a PayPal option (note that with a mailed check you will receive a letter for tax deduction, with PayPal that is not possible as the funds will go directly to us).

We feel privileged and blessed to be sent to Uganda and would love to have you on our team.

 

With much love and gratefulness,

Chris, Marion,

Lenah and Luke