Those of you who have known Bethany and me for any period of time know that we have a heart for missions. This is actually one of the things that first attracted me to Bethany when we first started dating. Both of us attempted to do missions (overseas with the IMB:Journeyman program) when we first graduated college (it's actually how we met, but thats another story). The Lord closed the door on both of our attempts. 

When we began to date and eventually got married, we knew that we would be going to the mission field in some form or fashion in our lives. This last summer God provided for to go to Guatemala with our Church and work with an organization called Clubhouse Guatemala. This was Bethany's third time to go and my first. While we were there, we just fell in love with the people, culture, and climate of Guatemala. In talking with the missionaries, we came to discover that their two biggest needs were someone to do media and someone to help on the medical side of things. When they said this, we were floored. It was one of those major "God" things. My wife is an R.N. and I am mainly a photographer (obviously) but I have also begun to branch out into other areas of media design. 

So we began to pray about what the Lord would have us to do. After talking again with the missionaries, we decided at the request of the missionaries that we should go back to Guatemala on our own. We began to look at good dates to go and came up with January of next year as a viable option. Now Guatemala is not very far away (comparatively speaking). It's about a 3 hour non stop flight out of DFW, however tickets for this flight were about $800 a person when we began to look. We decided to wait and see if the prices would drop and to talk to the missionaries to confirm the date. About a month ago, the Parkers (lead missionaries at Clubhouse) came to speak at my father's church in Longview. While they were in town, we discussed the dates, and they agreed that January would be a good time for us to come down. On a whim, I checked the price of plane tickets and the tickets that had been $800 a piece had drop to $417 each. Tell me that is not a God thing? 

So on January 13th of 2012, Bethany and I are hopped on an American Airlines plane and headed to Guatemala City, Guatemala to pursue the Lord and His calling on our life. This trip was  a "vision" trip, I guess you could call it. During this trip, we spent time seeing all the villages that Clubhouse works in, going to the super market, and seeing what life would be like in Guatemala. After being there a whole week, we have felt that the Lord has called us to Guatemala. 

Bethany and I are planning to move around April of 2013. Until then we are starting to raise support. We are going to have to raise $3,500 a month in support. Although this is a large sum of money, the Lord has shown himself able to take care of us and will give us what we need.

We ask first for your prayer support as this will be a big change in our lives. We also ask for you to consider financially supporting us if God so leads.

Stayed tuned with our blog and Facebook group for more updates!

JD and Bethany