BY JILL SANDERS
In October, our team decided to start surveying Wantakia and ask the Lord if this was the place for us. So October started the “trips”. Our men would fly into one village and hike all over the 10 villages of Wantakia. This meant for us, wives, our men were gone a lot.
The Lord showed us that Wantakia was definitely the place for our 3 families. So now it’s time to start milling wood to build our houses. This means…more trips for the men. Long, hard, trips. We chose to mill because the Wantakians told us, “We don’t have tin roofs or nails, so you’ll have to bring that stuff; but we have trees, so you must use them to build your houses.” It was important to the people, so it has to be important to us…long trips!
Starting in February, the wood was all milled and now it was actually time to start planting posts and building a frame. This meant…many more trips! But it’s exciting. Our houses are going up! Common talk for our kids has been, “Our daddy is in Wantakia.” or “when is daddy coming home?”
THIS…this week, is the LAST trip! Can I get a HORRAY?!?!?! Our guys and work teams from our churches have come to finish our houses. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
These past 6 months have been very stretching and challenging. Our husbands are physically exhausted. Us wives are emotionally exhausted. Our kids are very emotional. But the Lord has been with us through it all. He has given us strength to get us through the day, and tomorrow, and the next day. And more importantly, He’s shown us that this “suffering” is all for His kingdom. One day, the Wantakians will be represented in Heaven and it will all be…WORTH IT!
Thank you for praying for us. We seriously could feel your prayers. Thank you for writing emails to encourage us! Sometimes, that was the highlight of the day. Thank you for walking along side of us. We couldn’t do it without you!
Now let’s all celebrate!
P.S-We will post pictures of our bush houses soon!!
P.P.S-You can still help us finish our houses. Click here if you’d like to help the Sanders raise $5000 more! And click here to help Crabtrees raise $10,000 more.