April 2014 Update

Hello Everyone,

It’s hard to believe but we have been in Uganda for almost a month now. In some ways the time has seemed to have sped by and in other ways it has seemed to have dragged on. Overall, I would say for Becky and I this first month has had a huge theme of change and challenges. In a lot of ways it has been a great month of getting to spend a lot of time together as a family, of meeting some great people who have really bent over backwards to bless us and make us feel welcome, and being pushed to Jesus in some old and new ways. But in other ways it has been a month of large challenges, such as being homesick, feeling isolated and lots and lots of change. A new and big challenge for me was having to constantly rely on other people for our basic needs such as meals and transportation.

In the past few days we seemed to have turned a bit of a corner. A few days ago Becky made a comment that she could tell she was getting used to being here because things didn’t seem so weird anymore. It seems we are more and more living our life here and less and less just getting by. This combined with the fact that we bought a car yesterday (whoop!) and the gradual appearance of furniture in our house, has made us feel more “normal.” I say all this and also recognize that it is in the “not-normal” times that we tend to lean on Jesus more.

Another thing that has helped things feel more normal, for me anyway, is that I have started phasing into work. It’s been really good. One of the highlights of starting work has been I have met twice with a ministry here in Uganda called Cherish Uganda at their property. We are currently doing 2 projects for them with more in the works. The 2 projects we are currently doing for Cherish are: 1) 2 additional family homes and 2) a new medical clinic. I have attached a picture below of what the clinic currently looks like. For any of those construction people out there or anyone else who is curious to see more detailed pictures of the project and different methods they use, feel free to e-mail me. 

For the rest of this post, I will be talking about Cherish Uganda and the work they do. Since EMI is an organization that supports the Church and other ministries, I think it would be great to periodically pick out a ministry that we are working with and talk about them on our updates. To share what God is doing in East Africa.

Cherish Uganda is a ministry whose mission is to serve children with HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Here is an excerpt from their website:

“Cherish Uganda is a faith-based response to orphaned and vulnerable children living with HIV. Our approach is based on ‘The HOPE Principles’ of Healthcare, Love, Prosperity and Education. Home-based care in loving families is provided at Akaloosa Village as a last resort for children who need to be rescued; Grass-roots interventions and trust-based partnerships are transforming communities where high prevalence of HIV and poverty co-exist; while a growing movement of youth with an anthem of HOPE is changing the story of HIV/AIDS in Uganda.”

They carry out their mission with home based care, a primary school, medical services and many other programs. The home based care is a model to care for orphans with an emphasis on giving the children the family dynamic that can be missing in the traditional orphanage model. They have “mothers” living on the campus in a home who are given 6 or so children to raise with the support of other Cherish staff. The primary school and the medical services are not only for the children who live on the campus but also the surrounding community as a place to receive quality education and HIV/AIDS medical services as needed. For more information on Cherish Uganda please check out their website at cherishuganda.org. They are a ministry who is really succeeding at caring for the orphans & least of these in Uganda. Also, their director is a lady from Cranbrook, BC which was cool to find out.

A few prayer requests for us for this month:

·         For Becky & the kids to get a routine going.

·         That our marriage would be strong and we would communicate well.

·         For the locals that have come into our lives (Moses (our guard), Paul (our guard’s 6 year old son), Dorthy (our house help), Jackson (our Monday guard) and many more).

Thanks everyone for their support & prayers. We love you guys and please feel free to email us. We would love to hear from you.

The Whisnands

We made it!

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are alive and well in Uganda! It has been a crazy time and we can't believe that we have been here for a week and a half already. Our apologizes that we did not do a "we made it" post earlier. We will do our normal monthly post at the beginning of April.

Here are some of the exciting and note worthy points of our time in Uganda so far. Honestly it has been a whirlwind and hopefully we can express into words some of the past week and a half.

• We flew into Uganda at about 11pm on Thursday the 13th. After getting our 12 checked bags (50 lbs each) off the carousel, we had to find enough carts to hold those plus 2 car seats (which we have yet to use here in Uganda), a stroller and all our carry-ons. It's like we were moving or something. After getting some help to get all our bags out the door we met our ride and got out to the car where Nathaniel starts screaming that he has to go #2. So Becky "suggests" in her "quiet and calming" voice that I need to find him a bathroom. I pick him up and run back to the terminal (remember we are in Uganda) and try to find a bathroom without my kid going before he should. We eventually did and got back the car. Not bad for flying into a foreign country at midnight with 2 toddlers.
• After staying in a guest house for 8 nights, we found a place to live for the next year (see the below pic). We had a bit of trouble finding a place, but in the end we are excited about the one we are at. It has it's challenges since it's quite old but it has a huge, pretty yard. Not to mention we have a large avocado tree in our back yard that has me dreaming of guacamole already.
  
• On one of our days of shopping for household items for our house, Bethany & Nathaniel were not doing so awesome in the seemingly endless rows of Mommy & Daddy looking at items that they were not allowed to touch. After a while, Becky turned to me and announced "Just so you know I'm close to crying, so just be careful with your words." It was good to know. $20 to the first person who guesses what I did while still in that same store. Yup, I made my wife cry. I say this to not belittle my Becky's feelings at that moment but just to give some real life moments of our life here. With adding moving to Uganda to the normal stresses of everyday life, we would love your prayers to be more like Him in not only our "purpose" of being here but also continue to need Him and be like Him in our our everyday things.
• The last item I will mention has been a fun one for me the past few days. Since being here we have had to rely on others to transport us around and get things done. It has been great and the people have been awesome. But there is something to being able just hop in your car and go do an errand. Well we don't have a car and even if we did, we had no idea where to go. Well the past few days as the map in my head of Kampala has gotten better and better, I have mustered up the courage to take a 'boda-boda' around to do certain things. Not only has it been great to go do things we need to do but it's been alot of fun to ride these things. For a boda-boda, think of a guy on a motorcyle for hire with the driving style being something like the video game Frogger: weaving in and out of cars and not really paying attention to any road rules. They've been fun to ride. Becky has made me promise to get a helmet if this is going to be a regular mode of transportation for me but they are fun nonetheless.

 I hope these few stories and convey a bit of our life here so far and help you to relate and therefore pray for us. I have started reading one of my favorite books since we got here. It's kind of a biography of a missionary in the early 20th century named Isobel Kuhn. Really cool lady; from Vancouver actually. Anyway, the main theme for this particular book of hers is that we, as Christians are in the middle of an arena filled with spectators each day of our lives. That our obstacles, trials, choices, lives are a platform for God to be revealed to ourselves, other believers, non-believers and the spiritual realm. That God wants us as Christians to look to Him and rely on Him with all the parts of our lives as we encounter it. This will enable Him to show His power and fellowship.

I find this really encouraging and I hope you do as well.

Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement. We love you guys & gals.

The Whisnands

P.S. Tomorrow is Bethany's 2nd birthday and Becky's 32nd. Happy Birthday!

March 2014 Update

Hello Friends & Family,

Well it’s fast approaching that time when we will be leaving for Uganda. Our flight leaves on Tuesday, March 11 at 9:45pm. Craziness. The past week has been packed with changes and a million things to do. I have attached a picture I took of our “to-do” list that hopefully makes you laugh with all the things we have done & have yet to do this week. My favorite item on the list is “pack the house.” It makes us laugh.

Some highlights of the past few weeks include:

• Jay had emergency dental surgery that has culminated into Jay having an implant put in late this week. More craziness. Expensive craziness.
• Jay’s last day of work was on February 28. Was harder to leave than I thought it would be. The company I worked for has been great and I really enjoyed the people. 
• We met and had lunch with another young family here in Surrey, who is where we were last year with EMI. They are looking into long term commitments and going on an exploratory trip this week. Cool to look over the past year and see what all has happened and the things God has done to get us to this point.
• Our house is looking more and more like a bomb went off with all the purging and packing going on.
• We have had numerous people give us gifts of food, gift cards and time to help us with our move in the past few weeks. We thank all of you so much. It’s been great to see the community around us.
• We had our garage sale a few weekends ago and it went great. We sold most everything we wanted to, which was surprising since we woke up to snow that morning. One of the shoppers put it into perspective when they said we were doing great because we had no competition that day. I mean who else does a garage sale on a winter snowy day??
• We learned that one of the EMI staff families in Uganda is throwing a St. Patrick’s Day party 2 days after we get there. We are excited for the opportunity to get to meet a lot of the families at a fun event early on. We have also been told we have to wear something green and bring an Irish joke. If anyone has a good joke, let us know.
• We have been looking at places to rent through pictures and emails coordinated by the EMI staff. I have attached a picture of the current place we are hoping to get. We are excited about this place and we’ll see what happens.

We want to thank everyone for their support and help with getting us to our goal. We made it. It has also been very cool to see God show up in this past year. Becky and I were talking the other night and we’ve learned something cool in the past year: if we pray specifically, God answers specifically. I think we pray generally to God a lot of the times because we either don’t believe He will really answer and so we are just going through the motions or because we want God to read our minds. But I don’t think God works that way. He wants to be in relationship with us. He wants us to ask Him.

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

Matthew 7:7-11

      So to recap, we are flying out on Tuesday, March 11 at 9:45pm from Vancouver. We have an overnight layover in London and then on to Kampala, Uganda. In our next blog post, we will hopefully have cell phones by then and will be able to post our numbers if you wish to call. We will also post our addresses if anyone wishes to mail anything. Please e-mail as well, we would love to hear from you.

Some prayer requests for the next few weeks:

• We would have a good time with family & friends before we leave.
• We would sell our second car.
• We would have a relaxing flight with the kids. That we enjoy our time not packing.
• Communication. For Jay and Becky to be patient with each other and communicate well in these busy and sometimes stressful days.
• We would have a good transition to Ugandan life.
• We would experience God in new ways as we step out on this journey.

Thank you all so much,

Jay, Becky, Nathaniel & Bethany Whisnand

jaywhisnand@gmail.com

becky.whisnand@gmail.com

whisnands.blogspot.ca

Hello Family and Friends,

We trust that you've all had a great January! Our first month of 2014 has been quite an adventure!

We traveled quite a bit this month, from Vancouver, to San Antonio (where Jay's folks live), to Colorado Springs (where our eMi training was), then back to San Antonio to pick up the kids and spend time with The Whisnands before we head out, and finally, back home to Vancouver.

Our time with Jay's family was wonderful! We all had a fabulous time at their new condo: the kids loved the big pool, fish tanks, and being with their Pops and Didi (their names for Jay's parents). During our visit, we were also blessed to be able to spend time with Jay's brother, Wade, and his wife and daughter (Tara and Ruthie) as well as Jay's Aunt Dee. We were so grateful for the time we were able to spend together before heading out in March. It was very very hard to say good-bye.

Our week in Colorado for eMi training was very productive. We were two of twenty or so other volunteers and interns (*see picture) preparing to begin service with eMi all over the world (the US, Canada, the UK, Uganda, India, and another location that we're not allowed to write about for security reasons). Our training mostly focused on culture training and figuring out how God has designed us and equipped us to do His work.

One thing that surprised me (Becky), very pleasantly, was that ALL of the speakers and teachers were much more engaging and dynamic than I had expected. Quite frankly, I had anticipated a very long week full of dry talks from a bunch of analytical engineers. Instead, we had very thoughtful and experienced teachers who shared with us and taught us and helped us to understand ourselves better. What a good lesson for me, again, on not making quick judgements!

At training, we got to enjoy 2 things that we haven't been able to do for a long time:
1) Sleep through the night every night for a week
2) Play all sorts of games with our friends at the retreat center (it was SOOO good, we even got to teach our new friends how to play a game we learned in China, called Yak Brain!)

From my perspective (Becky's), the best thing about our time at training was the REST . Even though our days were full (most days went from 8 AM to 9 PM), I got to experience rest. Rest from cooking and cleaning. Rest from meal planning and driving around. Scheduled rest for processing. Scheduled rest for spending time with God. Sweet, beautiful, REST. It was so great to have that time of rest, particularly when I realize how completely insane the next 5 weeks or so will be!

And why will the next 5 weeks be so crazy? Well, it's because we've bought our plane tickets and we're officially heading out! WOW! Thanks so much to all of you for your financial support and your prayers that have allowed us to serve the Kingdom!

We leave on March 11th and we'll be flying from Vancouver to London, England, and from London, to Entebbe, Uganda (our destination airport). I'm pretty excited because our lay-over in London is for almost a whole day and so hopefully, we'll get to see Buckingham Palace (and when I say "see" I mean walk by and take a picture.) The story of our plane tickets is pretty incredible: we "randomly" found a travel agent on-line who got us missionary fares, which means they were much cheaper than any other tickets we were looking at AND we each get 3 free checked bags! That's 12 bags!!! Such a blessing!

Right now, we're sorting through our house and getting ready to have a big yard sale (in our basement...we have too many things to move outside...) in a couple of weeks (February 22nd). It's a big project, but we're making head way.

The last thing to update everyone on is the status of our support raising. If you don't remember our present goal is to raise $14,000 for start-up costs and $4,500 per month. To date, we have 93% of these costs committed. Which is awesome! So we have 7% left to raise which in dollars is approximately $400 per month. If anyone is planning on joining our financial team or knows someone who might want to help, please feel free to visit the EMI website at emiusa.org. Any questions, let us know.

There are so many things that we need prayer for, but we'll keep the list short :)

1) for emotional, spiritual, and physical energy and strength to get ready to leave
2) that we would continue to pursue Jesus and our relationship with Him 
3) that our yard sale would go well and that most of our things would go
4) for Jay to finish well at work and for our move to be a testimony to his co-workers
5) for our families as we go
6) for our remaining financial support

Again, we are so grateful for all of you and being on our team!

Love,

The Whisnands

January Update

Hello Friends and Family,

We hope you all had an amazing Christmas like we were able to! We had a great time with our family from out of town as well as resting and spending quality time together: it sure is nice to have Jay home from work too! He's not back at work for too long, though, because we are leaving for our EMI training this week! ACK! Just when we've got all of our Christmas things packed up and put away, it's time to drag out the suitcases and fill them up for our 2 week trip in the States.

A big bonus to our training trip is that we'll get to spend about a week with Jay's parents and even some time with his brother and his family before we head off to Uganda for 2 years. We are really looking forward to this very special time with the Whisnand family. Also, Nathaniel and Bethany will be staying with Jay's folks while we're in Colorado with EMI, so please pray for all of them in our absence! They do have a pool at Whisnand's condo, so that should help, as our kids really like swimming!

Support raising is coming along too! We only have 13% of our total budget yet to raise, so if you'd like to join us financially, we'd love to have you on board, as we need to have all of our funds committed before we leave at the beginning of March.

We are looking forward to what will do through EMI in Uganda. We just found out that they will be breaking ground on the new joint Missionary Aviation Fellowship and EMI building shortly after we arrive in March and we are so excited to be apart of all that God is doing in the area.

Merry Christmas and December Update

Hello Friends and Family,

I hope that you all are well and enjoying the traditions and preparations for Christmas. It’s hard to imagine that we’re just one week away! We are looking forward to being with family during this holiday time.

A huge thanks to the nearly 90 of you who came out to our Chili Lunch at Surrey Alliance earlier this month. We hope that you learned a lot about what EMI does and how Jay and I will be serving with them.

We also wanted to let all of you know that we have had a HUGE answer to prayer. After Jay told his current employer that he’ll be leaving in the New Year to join with EMI, he also felt that he should ask them if they would be interested in sponsoring us. We weren’t expecting much, if anything, as they are not a Christian company and it really doesn’t make sense for them to be helping us out. But as we’ve been learning in church, God holds the hearts of kings in His hands. About a week ago, Jay went in to speak with his boss about transitioning with someone else to oversee his project, and his boss let him know that the company will be giving us a substantial donation for our trip. They also asked if Jay would be willing to stay on with the company until the end of February to complete the project, which Jay is happy to do. Such an AMAZING answer to our prayer. Thank you again, to all those of you who have been so faithful to pray for us!

What does this mean for our trip to Uganda? First off, this means that we are much closer to meeting our financial goal. Currently, we have raised 85% of the funds that we need to go! Woo hoo! We still need to raise approximately $700 per month, and we are so grateful to all those of you who have been able to partner with us financially. Secondly, this means that we won’t be leaving in early January like we thought, but at the end of February, or early March, which is nice because it means that we have more time to complete our preparations and we get to have a MUCH more relaxed Christmas vacation.

A few notes for prayer:

- that God would continue to provide the rest of our funding

- that our training in Colorado in January would be a great time of equipping for Jay and I and that Nathaniel and Bethany would have some great bonding moments with Jay’s parents in Texas…and that Becky won’t cry too much being away from the kids for so long

We hope that you have a fabulous Christmas!

Love,

Jay, Becky, Nathaniel and Bethany Whisnand

October 23rd:

It is a little early for a complete post, and this week is SO very busy for us with many things happening at church, but for those of you who are interested and who have not received a copy of our support letter, here is a digital copy for the blog. If you would like us to send you a copy, please contact us at jaywhisnand@gmail.com or becky.whisnand@gmail.com.