Next Step

This week has brought us 2 opportunities to take the next steps in our mission journey.

CON MIS MANOS
On Monday, Dee met with the missionary from Con Mis Manos. They are developing a plan for Dee to travel and do some fund raising. This will allow Michelle and Chuy more time to focus on the ministry.
Dee is going to start by doing presentations in churches where she has friends. The presentation isn't really about fund raising, it is more about her testimony of how God has been leading her to work with missions her entire life. She is looking forward to this opportunity. Another part of her new mission will be to travel to churches that contact Michelle wanting more information. Michelle and Chuy will be visiting as many churches as possible, but there will be times when Dee might be able to stop by and update the church on what is going on. They are still praying and seeking God's guidance on how this will work.
Please pray for Dee, Michelle, and Chuy as they follow God's plan in this. Also, if you know of any churches who would interested in hearing Dee's testimony, let us know.

FREEDOM HALL
On Saturday the 3 Fullers got to spend the evening with the Pastor from Gulfport and his sweet family. They are in town this weekend to speak to our church family on Sunday. Saturday evening was a time of fellowship with the team who went to Mississippi this summer, their families, and the pastor's family. During that time, we were able to talk to Pastor Darren about an idea that God gave to both Robert and Dee at about the same time. We are hoping to spend the week after Christmas in Gulfport working at the community center on anything that they need us to do. Robert has that week off of work, and we both felt God telling us to go. Pastor Darren has approved the idea and now we can concentrate on the little details, like raising the gas money, but those are all minor issues.
Please pray as the three of us prepare to spend a week working as a team. And please continue to pray for the work that this great ministry is doing in Gulfport.


Again, thanks for reading and praying.

The Four Fullers
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Here is the long awaited follow up blog.

Freedom Hall
Gulfport, Mississippi

Day 1 Driving from Huntsville, AL to Gulfport, MS in caravan style. Met with Pastor Darren to hear his vision for Freedom Hall. Set up RV in center’s parking lot

Day 2 Very hot overnight. Found a way to hook up AC to center. Devotional for the week was on Nehemiah and building the wall of Jerusalem. Building a firewall. Hanging sheetrock, cleaning the parking lot, doing yard work.

Day 3 Having AC made the night much more pleasant. Continued work on the firewall, began working on a new sheetrock wall, and unloading more supplies.


Day 4 Devotional was about finishing the race. More of those walls including a second layer of sheetrock, and laying bathroom tile. Dinner at a nearby church campground for a crab and shrimp boil.

Day 5 Finished 2nd layer, taping and mudding the joints and corners, more tiles were laid, and more walls in the front part of the building

Day 6 Finished up the walls, finished the yard work. Cleaned up, packed up and headed home.


Con Mis Manos
Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Days 1&2 Dee drove from Huntsville to Nashville to pick up the rest of the team. Drove to Memphis for a Deaf community silent dinner. Stayed in Texarkana. Drive to Brownsville, with a dinner stop in Houston. An hour from Brownsville, Michelle, the missionary, called to say that, Andres, the Deaf adult who was being trained to be a pastor has been pulled into a cult. The next hour was spent praying for him and the whole deaf community.

Day 3 Church in Matamoros. Paco, 1 of the students was baptized. Went to center, and prayed over Michelle and Chuy as a couple, as teachers, as directors. Went to the land where they want to build a residential facility and prayed over it. Evening service included communion with Paco.

Day 4 Cleaning day. Organizing classrooms, stripping paint from tables.

Day 5 Water Park Day! The team sponsored a day of fun and relaxation for kids and missionaries.

Day 6 Shopping day, and making audio visual projects for fund raising. Also yard work and house work.

Day 7 Made breakfast for the teachers, prayed for each teacher individually. Accompanied kids to art class at local library. Went with Michelle to drop off the kids. It was very hard to say good bye to all the kids, but especially our friend Daniel.

Day 8, 9, & 10 Drove to Dallas with the missionaries to stay with friends. Woke up and finished up some of the computer projects from Wednesday. After lunch said goodbye to Michelle and Chuy, drove to Memphis to stay with a good friend. Next morning drove to Nashville, then Dee continued to Huntsville.




Prayer Team
Huntsville, AL and beyond

So what about Will? He got to stay at Grandma's house and be a part of our prayer team. Our prayer team was incredible. We had people in Huntsville, Central Ohio, California, Matamoros Mexico and Gulfport Miss.

And thanks to all of you for praying too!

This summer's trip may be finished, but that doesn't mean our work is done. Check back for more updates. We believe there is more work in store for Dee and Will in the near future.

Thanks again!

The Four Fullers

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Back Home Safe and Sound

The Four Fullers are all back home.
We can't possibly put into words all that we experienced, but we were all challenged, we all grew and we are all looking forward to the next trip.
The trip to Gulfport-
The team accomplished more that was planned. Praise the LORD! They built walls, they made new friends, they learned to trust each other and they had a great time.

The trip to Matamoros-
The team arrived in the midst of a spiritual attack, and they spent much of the week in prayer. They believe that God prepared a table in the presence of the enemy. They feasted on so many wonderful things.

Thank you for all of your prayers. We will be posting something in the near future with more details.

Also coming is an announcement of ways that our family will continue to work with these ministries.


Love to you all!
The Four Fullers

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Prayer Requests

Here are some ways that you can pray for us.

Challenges that we will face-
-Working as a team
-Flexibility
-Exhaustion
-Comfort
-Demonic Attacks
-Language and culture barriers

Please pray for us in each of these areas.

Also pray that we will put on the Full Armor of God. We will praying for this as we prepare to go.

We will be faced with many situations in which we will want to say "I can't." We are praying that we will defeat those thoughts with remembering what we are THROUGH CHRIST!
I AM a child of the KING!
I AM having fun!
I am a wonderful communicator!
I am happy!
I am not exhausted!
I am filled with the Joy of the Lord!

Thanks for praying and being a part of this wonderful opportunity.

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Rumors of Disease

Wow, it has been awhile since I have updated my blog.

So I am sure all of you have heard about the swine flu panic, and wondered about my trip to Mexico. I am watching the news carefully. The group that is organizing the trip is also watching and we are in contact with the missionary. We would be more concerned if we were leaving next week, but since it will be several more weeks, we aren't worried. We also believe that God is bigger than any disease.

Thanks for Reading!

Everything Changes

After talking to organizers, and doing some praying and talking, we have decided that Will is going to join Robert and Alex in Gulfport. The schedule for Mexico includes several 12-18 hour days. While we feel that Will is ready to go and work on a mission trip, we are not sure it would be in his best interest to ask that he keep those hours. Another part of this story is that to be sure that he is taken care of, Dee would be required to drive across the border into Mexico so she could take him to the hotel if he got too tired. We have talked a lot, checked into insurance, and prayed. We decided this was not something we wanted her to do.

Everyone is disappointed about this...but plans are in the works for Will and Dee to return to Mexico later in the year. More details to come.

Thanks for reading, praying, and caring.
The Four Fullers

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Border Issues?

So some of you may have read this and wondered why Will and Dee would want to go to the border area. There has been a lot in the media about all the horrors of border areas. After visiting there and talking to people who live and work there, we are not worried.
First, the problems with the "new" president...those stories are about 2 years old. He came into office in December of 2006. He has changed a lot of things; such as not feeling that he should answer to the drug cartels. He has set out to tear them down, and he is succeeding.

Also, there was a lot of talk about protesting at the border. Again the media was late, and wrong. The protesters were hired hands. When asked what their signs said, they replied that they couldn't read and were paid $50 a day to hold them (that is about a week's wages).

Most importantly, God has called Dee and Will to the area and we know that He will protect them.

Fund Raising has begun

We have started the fund raising process. Our church family is hosting a yard sale to support the Gulfport trip in the near future so we have been going through our closets and toy boxes. We have several bags to donate to the sale.
We also have our first yard job this week Will and Dee are doing some yard work for donations. If the temperature warms up a bit it would be easier. :) If you know of anyone in the Hsv area that needs some yard work done, let us know.

Another Link

Robert and Alex are traveling with a group of church family members. If you want to check out our church congregation here is our website.

www.LivingHopecma.org

I will be doing at presentation this Sunday at Living Hope about our short trip to Mexico a few weeks ago. I don't like public speaking, but am looking forward to the opportunity to talk about Con Mis Manos.

Links

Our friends at Gate Communications in Franklin, Tennessee introduced us to Michelle the missionary who works in Matamoros Mexico. We support their ministry with lots of volunteer hours. In case you want to know about them or the school, we decided to post website addresses for both.

www.GateCommunications.org
www.ConMisManos.org

Will and Dee went to visit our friends at Gate today, and they are SO ready to go back to Matamoros!

Thanks for reading.

What will we be doing?

June 13-20
Will and Dee will be working at a Christian deaf school in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. They will be staying in Brownsville, Texas and crossing the border every day. Their group will be working in the school and doing evangelism for the students and their families.

June 15-21
Robert and Alex will be working in Gulfport, Mississippi. This area is still healing from the recent hurricanes. They will be building classrooms in a building that is currently an empty shell. This building will become a community center, church and so much more. They will also be involved in street evangelism and church services.

A Picture from Mexico

This is a picture of Will and one of the students at the school where Will and I will be working this summer. He made lots of friends and can't wait to go back and work and play at the school.

Getting Started

So this is my first experience with blogging. I thought some people would like to know about the steps of this mission trip journey.

I will be adding information and updates here as time permits. And once we are on the trips, this will be where you can get the most up to date info on both trips.

I hope this allows everyone to keep up with us on our journey.

Thanks for reading!
D