Testimony of Gods goodness!

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3

I have been holding on to this verse in thepast week in the midst of all stress about applying for visa for the United States for Efraim and Jander. Living in faith isn’t always easy, especially when it gets really close to you! 

It has been a while that we’ve been thinking and praying for a possibility to visit a project in the United States. A team from the base in Tyler Texas has been here a couple of times to give us trainig here and I really wanted to see it all for myself. But this almost seemed to be impossible. First of all cause we’d have to get visa for Jander and Efraim, and secondly beacuse of the finances we’d need as well for the visa as for the trip itself. Because every month after paying our bills and monthly costs we would be in the red numbers again. But when we started thinking and praying more seriously in the beginning of this year God told me this would be HIS present for us as a family. (But I must admit that often I have been showing  very little faith in this….) We even considered me going alone, but in several ways God confirmed to us that we should go as a family. So we decided to go for it, step by step……

step1 passports

The passports of both Efraim and Jander had expired so we had to get new ones. This was not a dificult step, as we’re also planning to go to Holland later this year and we would have to have these passports anyway. And somehow we even had the money for it on the bankaccount!

step 2 getting the visa papers together

This step was a little bit more dificult, because soon we found out that we would have to prove 2 things, first of all that we have enough reason to return to brazil after our trip to the US (or, prove that we don’t have reasons to stay there illegally), but that was not the hardest thing. The second thing we would have to prove that we have enough money to pay for the trip and our stay there, and that’s hard when you don’t have a fixed salary and an empty bankaccount….so we joint as much papers as we could: an invitation from the States, a letter from the leaders of the base, our bankpapers, a letter from my parents, papers of the house and the car, payed bills etc. Also we made an appointment for the visainterview in Recife, the closest by consulate. We already had to pay for the visas as well, even though we didn’t even know for sure if we would get them! And in a miraculous way we even had the money to do all of this and even to buy airplanetickets to Recife, and we can’t even tell you where that money came from it just appeared at the right time!

step 3 To Recife

This was maybe the most stressing step, I didn’t sleep well, and had a hard time trusting God, out of fear of being disappointed. But right before the weekend before we would leave, I felt very much encouraged by friends from all over the world, letting us know they were praying for us, and also by the verse that is at the top. God was really giving us a lesson in trusting Him, but also in obedience. It had been a while that we didn’t send money to Janders mom, and there were a few other things we needed to pay. And I was thinking of waiting till after the interview, as we would have to show how much money we had on the bankaccount, and the more it has, the better. But God told me to be obedient to Him in the first place, and that we should pay first what we were owing. So with pain in our heart we withdrew the money from the bank, knowing that this was now seriously in the red numbers. But it was almost ironic when we received an email saying that that there was made a deposit of more than 800 euros!!! This didnt only mean we would be able to show that we have money on our bankaccount, but we  could also really enjoy our time in Recife being able to take people out to eat with us, and this way blessing them! In Recife we stayed at the YWAM base with friends.

step 4 to the consulate May 12

We woke up really early to be able to get there on time, and still there was a great big line outside. Luckily we had preference because of Efraim, but still we had to wait quite some while, the 3 of us very tired as we didn’t get much sleep that night. Not because of the nervousness, but because Efraim had to sleep in bed with us, and we found out that he really likes a lot of space!!! After a lot of waiting and entertaining Efraim for 3 hours it was our turn for the interview. That was definitely not easy at all, we were made a lot of questions, especially Jander, but God is bigger than that and Jander and Efraim got the visa! Wow, we almost couldn’t believe it, and we’re so grateful to God for His goodness and faithfulness to us!!!

Step 5 United States here we come!!!!!

We will receive the passorts with the visa back probably Monday and than we will be able to book our tickets. The project is going to pay my tickets, we have the money for Efraims ticket and a part of Janders ticket. Luckily the prices of tickets have gone down considerably, but after getting our visa we’re not a little bit worried about the finances for the trip anymore! We want to book the beginning of June, for 2 weeks, which means I will be celebrating my birthday in Tyler, Texas ! After all of this we’re really looking forward to see what God has in store for us! Thanks for all who prayed, God does still work miracles!!!!