Settled in Before Heading Out and Updated Prayer Request!

Hey Friends! We've finally closed on our house and we're so incredibly grateful to a sweet friend from our church for taking us in before we officially head to Oxford! Bless Matthew's heart, he's asking about 5000 questions a day about the new place and what's happening. Many of you have asked us if we're excited about moving. That's a double-sided question. Are we excited to move to Oxford, Absolutely! Are we growing sadder (if that's a word) as the days grow closer to our family moving from Manchester? Absolutely. Knowing what God has called us to go and do bring a measure of excitement and hope as we aim to honor Him, but that doesn't take away the sadness we're beginning to feel as we get ready to go.

Ellie left this note on my board at work recently.

You can pray for Ellie, especially. She's less excited about moving than she has been. She's beginning to figure out she won't see everyone she sees each day. She asked me the other day if we could move all of her friends from school and move our whole church to Oxford. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be able to pull off a task that big! But, by God's grace we're going to make it and be just fine. We're grateful for the friends and family who have tried to carve out extra time for us, knowing that our time is limited here. There are tons of people we would like to see before we move and we're trying to do all we can. If you'd like to get together with us before we go, just message us and we'll see what we can do!
Thanks again for being so kind and loving to us! By way of updated prayer requests, here are a few:

1. Pray for our family as we get ready to move-we're excited, but sad (in case you missed that above :))
2. Pray for a house for us to rent. We found a house we wanted and seemed promising, but it didn't work, so we have no options currently. Pray that God would open whatever door he needs to so that we'll have a place to live!
3. Pray that God would continue to provide the resources needed for the new work. We still need to raise around $20,000, if possible. Maybe you, your church or a group in your church would consider either giving a one-time gift or partnering with us over the next couple of year. You can do that by giving online at www.encounterlifechurch.org/give or by mailing a check to Encounter Life Church PO Box 375 Manchester, TN 37349. In the memo of the check note that it's for the PA plant.

Thanks for praying! Thanks for encouraging us! Thanks for supporting us! Thanks for being our friends and sharing your lives with us!

Billy (and Jodi)