June 22-28

It has been a very busy week for us since we come from Elkhart. Andrew's parents arrived on Sunday (6/22) night. The next morning we were all up before the crack of dawn (about 4:30am) and headed to the hospital for Dad's surgery. It went very well, but took about an hour longer than expected. Dad was released the next day, and he has been getting stronger each day at our apartment. His doctor and Mom (not Grandma Dodd!) both agreed that he should stay close to GR, and the three hour trip home would be too hard on him. Thank you so much for your prayers for Dad as he recovers, please continue to pray for him. To fill out the rest of the week, Kate had two tests, a quiz, and a paper to write; while Andrew had to pull an unexpected double shift from 3pm Saturday night till 7am Sunday morning. Everything is more fun when you are busy and have little sleep, right?


On a personal note, Andrew just got to use the meat tenderizer to smash up a cough drop for Dad...he liked using it a lot.

Meeting the Missionaries!

Last Friday, June 20th, our journey took us to Elkhart, Indiana. We drove down on Thursday night and stayed with Chad and Laura Hibbard. It was so fun to reconnect with them (we hadn't seen them since our wedding almost 2 years ago) and spend time with Andrew's childhood friend (who was also one of his groomsmen). On Friday morning, we headed out to the Cryan's home, but we got lost, turned around, and had to go all the way back to the Hibbard's! Not exactly the first impression we had hoped to make! The Cryans and Mixons were very gracious and understood why it took us a little longer to get there.

The rest of the morning was spent getting to know each other and asking (and answering) many question. It was SO encouraging to understand more about the ministry at Bethesda. We received a much clearer vision of what we will be doing in just 37 days as well as how we might fit in at Bethesda in the future. We also learned we will be able to blog while in South Africa, unfortunately we won't be able to post any pictures until we get home. Four hours later, we left encouraged and eagerly anticipating our trip. We feel so blessed to have been able to meet them before we arrived at Bethesda.

We spent the rest of the day with Chad, Laura, Aidan, and Kian...Aidan is an amazing golfer for being just two and a half! Thanks Chad and Laura for having us!

We can't wait for August 6th to get here!

June 20th

We have a unique and exciting opportunity to meet and spend the day with the Mixon's and Cryan's (the missionaries at Bethesda) this coming Friday, June 20 in Elkhart, Indiana. It will be so good to put faces with the names and get to know them before working with them as we serve in August at Bethesda. Please pray for us as we travel and find out in more detail what opportunities we will have in Africa.

How we'll get there...

Once we figured out the who, what, where, when, and why all that was left was the HOW. We knew this would be a God-size venture especially after looking at thousands of flights to and from South Africa and coming up with a total budget for our trip. Financially, Andrew and Kate Inc. had no way of providing for this trip. We continued to pray that if God wanted us to go that He would be the one to get us there. Over the last three months, He has blessed us in overwhelming ways through God's people and His church. We found out just this past weekend (6/12) that we have 100% of the money needed to go on our trip. PRAISE THE LORD!

When you dream big with God, watch out cause amazing things will happen even beyond your expectations. (Eph. 3:20)

What we hope to do...

We will serve for two and a half weeks in August at Bethesda by:

• Sharing the gospel, caring for, and meeting the needs of the HIV/AIDS orphans
• Encouraging the missionaries and South African house parents at the orphan village
• Seeing and experiencing firsthand future ministry opportunities

The plan and expectation of our trip is to be exposed to all facets of the ministry at Bethesda. This means anything from pulling weeds and painting a classroom to teaching a chapel service. During our stay we will be involved in various projects so that when we board the plane to go back to the US we will have a good idea of what life at Bethesda is. That will be our biggest job while we are there, to know and understand as much as we can about Bethesda and South Africa and how we might fit in as part of the team someday. We were told and are looking forward to the fact that we can be kept quite busy during our time at Bethesda. Interaction, caring for, and getting to know the children is one of the things we look forward to the most. We also have the opportunity to be shown the surrounding community to expose us to all walks of life at Bethesda.

We are excited and wait in anticipation to see what God is going to do in our hearts and lives as well as those that we serve and encourage.

What is Bethesda?

Bethesda Outreach is a ministry of Evangelical Baptist Missions. Bethesda's mission is to encourage and assist local churches in meeting the needs of orphan children, that they may become disciples of Christ. What we think is also really unique about Bethesda is they don't just line up beds in a dorm for the orphans. They have Christian South African couples raise 5 or 6 of the orphans as their own children there on Bethesda's grounds. So the kids grow up in a loving Christian home with "siblings" and get the example of what a mom and dad should be like. They also have a school there and they teach the kids life skills so that when they leave as adults, they have a trade or a skill and can get a job in the workforce to provide for themselves.

Click here for more information Bethesda Outreach Ministry Website

Winter '08

In our journey to run hard after Christ, we believe God has given us gifts and passion to reach young people not only here in the United States but also those suffering from the AIDS pandemic around the world and specifically in Africa.

This past Christmas, we began to talk about the possibility of going on a short term missions trip on Kate's 3 week summer break in August. In January, we contacted a number of missions agencies and organizations that are also passionate about reaching AIDS orphans. We didn't have to wait long before we got numerous responses from all over the world. Bethesda Outreach Ministries quickly went to the top of our list.

By the first week of February, we were already talking to the Mixon's and Cryan's (the missionaries at Bethesda) on the phone. After much prayer and a whole lot of email conversations, we set the date August 6-23, 2008.

This winter was the first steps on a new journey for the Dodds!