49.4%

We are currently at 49.4% of our budget. We have $2965.00 committed. Thanks to all those who read this blog and are committed to give. Rest assured you are unique. Things are going well here in the Harper household. We are taking it easy this Tuesday night, just doing a little bloggin' and chillaxin with the wife.

I don't have much to say tonight. I hope you are having a great night/morning/afternoon. I do have one prayer request. Pray that the Lord continues to bring us new contacts. We are getting to the point where we need referrals from people and we need God to move in people. We need people to trust the Lord with not only their salvation but with the finances He has given to them to manage. I always thought it was interesting how sometimes it is easier for people to trust Christ for salvation but trusting Christ with money seems harder. I don't know maybe its because I am young and I don't have a mortgage or three kids or a car payment. I don't know maybe I am just idealistic. Maybe the Lord has moved me to trust Him with what He has given me. Maybe...


BH

Romans 8:28

Recently,
Abbey and I have been able to see God working in our lives. Let me explain. A couple months ago Abbey was in a fender bender. It messed up the front end of her car, it was going to cost us more to fix the car than what the car is worth. We put an add in the Peddler at our church and a few weeks ago a car was donated to Campus Outreach. A man in our church donated the car and we get to use it till we leave for Brazil, then Campus Outreach will use it for missionaries traveling in the states.
Here is another example of how God is working. Our lease expires at the end of March. We are hoping and praying to be in Brazil by the Fall. Abbey called our landlord and explained what we were doing and we worked out a six month lease and he lowered our rent. Pretty Cool.
These are just two examples of how I feel God is moving us toward Brazil. I know He is working even when I can't see it, like last September. Last September was our worst month to date with support raising, I think we raised $50 for the whole month. But while the money was not coming in God was growing our faith and dependence on Him.
God is always at work in His people. Sometimes it is just a little easier to see.
Be encouraged.

-bh

January 30, 2010

Good day everyone,

As of today we are currently at 46% of our monthly support and we have around $30,000 of our one time raised. Decemeber and January have been very good months. God is continuing to bring new supporters to our team and it is amazing to see Him at work.  A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit Ft. Wayne, IN. Our friends, Sam and Abbey hosted us and we were able to speak in four Sunday school classes at their church, Emmanuel Community Church. We had several people sign up to receive our updates and one family signed up to support us financially. It was a great trip and we just wanted to thank Sam & Abbey and the members of Emmanuel Community Church for the great hospitality.

-brian

Happy New Year!

The past couple of weeks  we have been out of town, visiting family, spreading Christmas cheer, and things of that sort.  Abbey and I thought December would be a pretty slow month regarding support, people are spending time with their families, a lot of traveling, and usually spending more money around this time of year for various reasons. So we were nicely surprised by the amount given this month. This has been our best month when it comes to how much money has come in. We are currently at 27% of our monthly budget, thats around $1650 committed, this is all unofficial as well we will not get our monthly giving report until next week so it could go even higher.
We will give more information as we get it. The above picture is a house in my mom's subdvision, Kennesaw, GA is bringing that Christmas heat. The picture does not do it justice.

BH

Gobble, Gobble.

Thanksgiving is upon us and we have a lot to be thankful for. Abbey and I have so many things to be thankful for and here is a list: We are very thankful for our church, Briarwood, and our Sunday school, but really, we are thankful for the relationships that make up the church and our community group. We are thankful that the Lord has provided us with jobs while we raise support, not just any jobs but places where He can use us while we are raising support. We are thankful for the people supporting us right now, at last count we have 37 people/families giving contiounsly and have over 25 people that have given one-time gifts. Most importantly we are thankful for what the Lord has done in our lives the past year. He has grown us closer together and continues to teach us how to live trustworthy lives when all we want to do is follow our own fleshly desires and feeble plans. 

brian

Be Encouraged

 We are currently at 23% of our monthly goal. We need $4,610.00  more a month to be at 100%. We have to be at 100% before we can leave for Brazil. $4,600.00 sounds like a lot to us, because it is. It is a lot of money to raise on our own. The thing is we are not on our own, we do not have to raise it all by our selves. The same God that parted the Red Sea is the same God that will raise our funds. The Lord has been working in me over the past 6-7 weeks in the area of trust. Trusting Him not just for today but for the future as well. I urge you to put your trust in Him, not just for today but for the future, not when the economy is going well but even now when the economy is not going well. Not when there are enough vaccines for the swine flu but even now when there is a shortage. I just want to urge you to be encouraged by the fact that God is not changing, He is the same as He was in the Garden. He is the same God that sent His son to die for us while we were apart from Him.  Romans 5:8 states: but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Be Encouraged.

It is Saturday

Today is Saturday October 24, 2009. If you are stumbling over this blog through an email update that is great. If you would like more information about Brazil or Why we are going to Brazil? or Where is Brazil? Scrool down and look at some of the earlier posts. They should answer a lot if not all of those questions.

I really have no idea what to write about today. Support is going well. The Lord has been teaching us how to trust him in new ways everyday. We have learned its not about Us or Our Plan, its about Him and His Plan, and also trusting God is not always easy. I constantly want to do things my way. The support process has been more about God working inside of us and preparing us to labor in Brazil way more than it is about money. With that said, please continue to pray that the Lord will give us opportunties to talk of what He is doing in Brazil.

Tchau
Bh

Check out this van. We passed this van coming back from St. Simons Island. I would have loved to been there when they were packing this thing.