Christmas Eve

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the houses,
Every creature was sleeping, except for Jessica and Rachel who were awake from all of their excitement…."

 Or something like that, anyhow.

 With Christmas Eve upon us, Jessica and I have only a few days left until we depart from Panama!

 
The fundraising is done.
Packing is nearly finished.
We are busy putting the final things we need into our bags, double-checking our packing lists, and excitedly texting each other.
 
Nerves.

Excitement.

Anticipation.

 

We were able to spend some time last night talking and shopping for some Christmas gifts for the island kids, and we are both ready to go! While there is still some anxiety for both of us, as there always will be with any situation that includes a lot of 'unknowns', we are both incredibly excited as well!

 

As Christmas Day approaches, we both have been careful to take a moment and reflect on the incredible gift of love and sacrifice, and the humility that Christ showed when he first arrived on Earth as a tiny baby all those years ago. Those qualities are ones that we hope to bring with us and display brightly as we tell the people in Panama about the true gift of Christmas - Christ - and what an incredible gift that was. It is such an excitement and joy to be a messenger to carry that good news to others, whether across the street or across the globe. Our prayer for you is that you would take a moment to pause in this season that, all too often, becomes hectic and busy, and rest in the peace of God's presence, in the Immanuel - God with us.

 "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

 

 Take the time to rest in His peace and His presence, and rejoice in His goodness and graciousness He has shown to us.

 

Merry Christmas!

The church on one of the islands has a homemade paper Christmas tree!

Final Update On Our Fundrasing

Hey Everyone,

Rachel and I are leaving THIS Friday!! We are so exited and can not believe we will be leaving so soon. The time has flown by so quickly. Rachel and I decided to commit to going on this Panama mission trip early in October, which meant that we each had to fundraise about $2,500 in two and a half months. The thing was - we knew we couldn't fundraise that much money in that short amount of time, combined with the fact that both of us were in college for those months which meant we were going to be occupied with assignments and classwork leaving us a limited amount of time to spend working on our fundraising.

Rachel and I are both fully funded!! Thank you!!

We knew we couldn't do it, but we knew someone who could. God could easily handle this task. Only God could provide for us in these circumstances. We trusted God to provide for us even when the time came closer and closer and it could seem like we couldn't make our goal. God used each one of our friends, family members, church family, and even strangers to complete the  fundraising goal. We are so encouraged by the thoughtfulness and generosity of everyone who donated. Your kind words of encouragement and prayers are also a blessing and mean a lot to us. We honestly could not have done this without all of your support!

Less than three weeks!

Hello everyone!

Well, with less than three weeks to go before we leave, Jessica and I are getting super excited!

We bought our plane tickets a few weeks ago, so our flight itinerary is finalized. We will be leaving the day after Christmas, and we have a pretty long layover in Texas. We'll be in Panama on the 27th! We have been finishing up our fundraising (watch for another post on that), buying some things we need to take with us on the trip, and are getting ready to start packing.

We each still have about a week left of the semester for school, so I know that preparations for the trip will really get underway as soon as we are finished with finals.

Some things that you can be praying about as we are leading up to the trip are:

Some of the flooding in the San Blas.

• Pray for the people of Panama, especially those we will be working with, that their hearts would be open to the Gospel.
• Pray that God would do incredible things in us and through us.
• Pray for our hearts and minds to be open to what God has for us.
• Pray for safety and health throughout the entire trip for the team.
• Pray for the safety of the families on the islands - they have had some pretty heavy flooding in the past few weeks.




More flooding.
 


• Pray for the last bit of our fundraising to come in!

The way that God has been bringing everything together for this trip has been incredible! Jessica and I have already seen him working in some amazing ways, and we can't wait to see what He will do once we arrive in Panama!

Update on Fundraising: Part One

Hey Everyone!

We wanted to give you an update on our fundraising so far. As a quick reminder we are needing to fund raise a total of $5,000 for both of us. 

To date we have raised $1,267 from Rachel and myself individually fundraising and our church envelope fundraiser, which means we still need to raise $3,733 in roughly a month.


We thank those who have already donated so generously - we truly appreciate the partnership and support.


If you would like to donate to help us go serve in Panama, we would be so grateful! We are already seeing the ways that God is moving and working and we are so excited that we get to be a small part of what He has planned for the San Blas Islands this Christmas.

• You can send or give a check to Jessica or Rachel, made out to either one of us or Big World Ventures. 

• You can donate directly to Big World Ventures online at : http://neverthesamemissions.org/donate/ using a credit card and filling in either one of our names in the Missionary Name box.

• Participate in our envelope fundraiser. There are still some envelopes left ranging from $1 to $50. There are available every Sunday after church in the lobby.

• Pray for the people of Panama, that their hearts would be open to the Gospel, and that God would do immeasurably more even than what we could imagine.

• Pray that the Lord will provide for us in an extraordinary way.

You are making a difference! Thank you!

Rachel and Jessica

Coming Soon: An Envelope Fundraiser

Hi everybody!

Some of you have already asked how you can get involved with our trip this Christmas, and we're so grateful! We need you and we're so excited to bring you along as much as we can.

We are going to start an envelope fundraiser. How it works is there are fifty envelopes, each with a number on them (1-50). Each person gets an envelope and fills it with the matching amount - so if you take the #2 envelope, you put in $2, the number #36 gets $36 and so on. If all the envelopes get filled, we will have raised over $1,200!

We will have the envelopes set out at our church after the regular service time. We are also planning on doing two sets of envelopes since there are two of us going.

We are asking that everyone bring the envelopes back to Jessica the following week at church, or at the very latest, by the 23rd of November. We are going to be using the majority of the money from this fundraiser for our plane tickets! We are also asking that everyone would put their name on the back of the envelope so that we can properly thank everyone who is supporting us!

Be on the lookout for those starting this Sunday!

Grateful for all of you,

Rachel and Jessica
 

Our Mission: How You Can Help

Friends,

We are leaving for Panama in about two and a half months. We need your help!

For both of us to go, it will cost about $4,600 including airfare, room and board on the island, and other travel-related costs.

We also would like to purchase our plane tickets within the next two weeks, which will be the best time to buy them before the price skyrockets.

 Jessica and I are trusting that we can raise enough for our plane tickets (about $1800) in approximately two weeks. Can we do it? Nope. Can God do it? Absolutely!

Please pray for us! And consider joining us on our journey and partnering with us to bring the Gospel into these remote regions of Panama.

Some very specific ways you can help:

• You can send or give a check to Jessica or I, made out to either one of us or Big World Ventures. (Although if it is made to Big World, we cannot use it to pay for flights).

• You can donate directly to Big World Ventures online at : http://neverthesamemissions.org/donate/ using a credit card and filling in either one of our names in the Missionary Name box.

• There will possibly be a fundraiser or two coming up sometime in November. You should definitely come to those. :)

• Pray for the people of Panama, that their hearts would be open to the Gospel, and that God would do immeasurably more even than what we could imagine.

• Pray that the Lord will provide for us in an extraordinary way.

We are so excited to share our adventures with you as we travel!

Rachel and Jessica

Our Mission: What We're Doing

Road through the Guna Yala Mountains to the San Blas

Hi everyone!

Let us tell you a little bit about what will be doing when we head off to Panama this Christmas.

We will begin our journey probably late on the 26th of December. The flight to Panama is about 7 hours from Southern California, so hopefully we can fly during the night and then arrive in Panama somewhat early on 27th. The whole team will be arriving throughout the day on the 27th, so we'll take most of that day to rest, meet each other, and get everyone ready to go.

Then we'll travel to the San Blas islands! This involves a 2-hour drive through the mountains followed by an hour or so long boat ride out to them. We will have one island that we stay on, and we will travel to a couple of different islands throughout our time there to do ministry.

On the islands, we will do some toy distributions for the kids, and hut-to-hut ministry with the adults. The toy distributions tie into the fact that it is indeed Christmas time when we go, and they are a great way to show how many gifts Christ has lavished upon us, but in a more tangible way. We will also be going to the homes of needy families on the islands, praying for them, talking with them, and bringing some food to them. Pastor Morris, the pastor we will be working with, oversees a whole bunch of islands as their pastor - about 20 islands, if my memory is serving me well. He may have some other things in mind that he wants us to help with when we arrive as well.

Playing with the kids is a big part of what we do, and it is a huge deal for them. Family dynamics on the islands are often very complicated, and the kids are eager for someone to play with them, to hold them, paint their faces, give them piggy back rides, and let them know they are loved. It is such a blessing to be able to take the entire morning and just play with them and show them how much we care about them - and that God cares about them even more than we do.

These people are so desperately in need of love and Christ's grace and love for them. Only around 3% of the island population is Christian. We are getting the incredible opportunity to go and show them the love of Christ in a tangible way - through bringing food, gifts, laughter, prayer, and playing.

We are so excited to bring you along on this journey with us!

Rachel and Jessica

Introductions: I'm Jessica.

Hello!

I am Jessica Sparks. I am 20 years old and currently working part time while attending Folsom Lake College completing my general education classes, so that I can transfer to a Christian university. Some random facts about me is that I love the cold and especially the rain. I have been a vegetarian for 2 and a half years now and this mission trip to Panama will be my first time out of the United States. 

My first mission trip was when I was 16 years old. It was a week long trip to the San Francisco/ Oakland area in 2010. On that mission trip, we went somewhere new each day and worked with a different organization that helped the community in a different way. We worked with the homeless, kid's summer camp, a long term care hospital, a local food bank and a soup kitchen. We spent time with so many people and it was awesome to be able to share God's love and grace with everyone.

I will be honest, for me personally that trip was challenging. I was doing a lot of things outside my comfort zone at the time. But because of that, my relationship with God grew so much during that week. Those seven days made a huge impact on my life.  After that trip it started the process of me becoming more and more interested in getting involved in missions and eventually I decided that I wanted to make it a big part of my life, which is why I am now pursing an education to be able to plan and organize mission trips as well as regularly go on mission trips.

I met Rachel at Vintage Park Community Church and through the years we have become really good friends. The two of us even ran a girl's bible study for a little over a year before she moved away for college. Rachel and I both have a love of missions, so we have naturally talked about them and our experiences. I had mentioned to her that I would love to be able to go on more mission trips although with work and school I never had any time that would allow for it.  Earlier this month Rachel told me that while praying and thinking about this mission trip for herself she kept thinking of me and wanted to then invite me to go with her. I immediately knew I wanted to go. I had heard stories of her past mission trip there and I just knew I would love to go. After praying about it I just knew that I had to go. 

I have never had to fundraise for a mission trip before, but I have complete peace and trust that God will provide. I am so excited to be going and am even more excited to see how God will work through Rachel and I this December into January. I can't think of any other way I would want to be starting off the year 2015 then to be serving God in Panama.

Jessica Sparks

Introductions: I'm Rachel.

Hi everyone!

I'm Rachel Bicha. I am currently a freshman in college, studying English at Biola University. I really love writing, my favorite kind of cereal is Lucky Charms (although lately I have been eating a lot of Frosted Flakes), and the longest time I have spent traveling in the car in one day was 13 hours.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself and how I got involved in missions. I went on my first missions trip to Ecuador when I was 15 years old, and I went back the following year to Panama. We spent two weeks in and around Panama City, and a third week on a group of islands called the San Blas Islands.

About a year and a half later, I finally got the chance to go back, and it was incredible. We were able to see some of the same people again, and go to new islands as well. The chance to reconnect and follow up was amazing. 

Somewhere around a month or so ago, I found out that a team would be going back to the islands again this Christmas. I didn't think much of it, because I "knew" that I wouldn't be able to go with college, fundraising, and all of those kinds of things - I didn't think that it would all be able to fit together and work out. The only problem was ... I couldn't get the idea out of my head! Little things would pop up all the time reminding me of Panama, and I'd start thinking about it. Songs I'd hear... a purse someone was carrying... something someone said... finally I started praying about it, and the dates worked, the timing worked.. long story short, I am going to back to Panama, and I am so excited!

I still knew that fundraising would be difficult and the timing would be harder with school involved, but I am trusting God to provide and I know that He will get me to wherever He has called me. I am also so excited to be bringing along a friend, Jessica Sparks! This will be her first international mission trip, and you'll get to hear from her next.


                              
After that first week on the islands in 2012, I fell in love. The people, the culture, the kids, the weather - I loved it. We saw God working in those people in incredible ways on that trip, and on the next trip, even more so. Each time after I've returned home, I knew I just couldn't wait to get back.

I am so excited that God is giving me yet another opportunity to return to these people and these islands, and I can't wait to see what He is going to do there this Christmas. I know that he has something amazing planned, and I am humbled and honored that I get to be a part of it! 

Can't wait to bring you all along for the journey!


Rachel