The Flores Journey

We leave the United States in roughly 6 weeks. Reality is beginning to sink in as we realize that everything we know is about to dramatically change. We are excited, scared, curious, and a little sad. But each day we get closer to leaving, we are more and more sure that this is indeed what God is calling us to do as a family.

I (Claire) was encouraged to speak at a church in Connecticut in late March. Even though I only shared with them for a few minutes, I was so blown away by their spiritual and emotional support and their financial generosity. It's fellow believers like that who are our "cheerleaders", affirming us in our desire to follow the Lord.

We want to say a special thank you to all our faithful supporters. You have no idea how much of a daily encouragement you are to us!

Please pray for us as we are in the midst of the visa process. Pray for expediency and favor with the consulate.

We have officially begun the process of transition. Just another reminder that this venture is indeed, a reality! In a week, Claire will be flying to Vermont and Bryan will drive just a week later. We plan to be there with Claire's parents for 2 months and hopefully depart for Cape Town in January.

It's a bittersweet time for us as we say goodbyes to everyone we have spent the past years with. We will greatly miss our friends, family and church body! But as we move forward, sadness is not our tune... we are delighted to be moving into the season that God has ordained for us.

As far as support, we are still at about 10% of our monthly and 65% of our set up fund. We are praising God for the support that we have received and believing him for the rest. In the meantime, Bryan will find work in Vermont to help those numbers increase.

We are so blessed to have been able to live with Bryan's parents for the past month and now to be living with Claire's parents for the next couple months. Both of our families have been so generous in opening their homes to us.

As we walk forward in this journey, we ask for your continued prayers. Transition is never a completely smooth process, but please pray for us that it will be as smooth as possible, especially for 5 month old little Peyton.


Please continue to pray for us as we strive to be trustworthy with what we have been given by God. Even in only having a 5 month old, we are walking forward in this journey of parenting with hearts desires to do it to the best of our ability. We want to make decisions even now for Peyton that will set her up for a life of godliness even now. We also want to hold her with open hands and release her to the Lord knowing that He and only He can protect and sustain her. Pray that we will walk in wisdom even as we parent on the mission field. Thank you for your prayers and for being the body of Christ alongside us!

In our previous post, we talked about beginning the process of fund raising. Well, here we are, a few months into the process and we can't help but feel discouraged. So far we have received only one time donations and one "pledge" to donate monthly. We realize that we haven't been doing this for that long, but still it's hard not to wonder if perhaps this isn't meant to be.

Don't think that we're giving up at the first sign of adversity, but it's hard not to wonder if perhaps this is God's way of showing us that South Africa is not His direction. That perhaps we heard wrong.

We still both feel a burning passion for the people of South Africa. We still feel at peace with our decision to move there. But each fund raising appointment we go to bears the same result. "No, we're sorry. We can't support you at this time." or "We can give a little bit, but just this once." Believe you me, we're not judging. We know the time in which we live. We realize there is economic crisis going on.