Welcome to Jennifer!

Dear Friends and Family,

We would like to make this a special letter from the Mead family to announce the birth of our fourth child: Jennifer Katiana Mead. She was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida on September 18, 2009 at 11:38pm. At birth she weighed 6 lbs, 6 oz and measured 20” tall.

We are very grateful to God who provided a very easy (by comparison!) and quick delivery. We were scheduled to go in the following day at 7:30 am for Maggy to be induced if she didn’t go into labor earlier. While we were OK with the induction, we would have rathered to forego that and were praying about that along with many of you. Maggy had been having irregular contractions, but they always went away.

Around 5:00 pm on Friday the 18th, she began recording her contractions again. They were about 14 minutes apart. By 7:00, they were about 9 minutes apart and we called the doctor. After getting the OK to go to the hospital, we packed up and headed in. She was admitted and after a brief check in Triage to confirm that she indeed was in labor, we were sent to Labor and Delivery. No sooner had the epidural been given and the contractions stopped! (According to the machine) The nurse set up the delivery table and got all ready to go and started a drip of Pitosin. After everything was ready, she was going to leave us and see if the contractions returned. But she decided one last check, and found the baby’s head almost out!

The doctor came in and after only one push, the baby was delivered! Daddy got to cut the cord and our 4th little one was officially ushered into our world! The remainder of the stay was pleasant and they released us at about 11:30 am on Sunday.

Maggy is resting comfortably and the whole family is very glad to have the new one! Thanks to all of you who have been praying for this to go smoothly. God has blessed us tremendously and we thank him for that!

David, Maggy, Joni Karina, Joshua, Jonathan and Jennifer

David Gets to Go to Ecuador

Thanks to all of you who are praying for us. God is really doing some exciting things in our lives and the plan to go to Ecuador is really coming together.

We have the dates now for me to go to Ecuador to take the evaluation. I will be leaving the 2nd of October and returning the 18th. Since our last letter, we knew we needed to rely on God for all the costs associated with this evaluation. I needed flight time to brush up on my skills, airfare to get to Ecuador and the evaluation costs itself.

God has planned ahead for all this and is working it out! I discovered that I had enough frequent flyer miles to travel to Ecuador for $23! (The tax on the ticket). I also belong to the Civil Air Patrol and can fly an airplane for practice for less than half the cost of a rental. The only item left is the cost of the evaluation itself. It is estimated to be around $2000. The exact amount will vary with exactly how much flying I will have to do, I assume. Since 2 out of 3 items have been taken care of by God already, we are making the arrangements for my trip and we'll watch how God provides the rest.

Even Maggy is excited for me to be able to go. She feels a lot better about moving down if at least one of us can take the opportunity to look for housing options, schools for the kids and other such arrangements.

Other plans and arrangements are going well. We got rid of a ton of stuff at our garage sale. We got quotes from a shipping company that are very reasonable to move the little stuff we have remaining. We have our stuff in order enough to take our time packing for the move at our leisure.

The plans for the banquet in November are coming together too. I will be able to finish up work on the presentation after returning from Ecuador when I will have much more information on exactly how things will work for us. By that time, God willing, we will be full members of ADSE (MAF-Ecuador) as well.

The kids are doing well in school and are mentally preparing for going to a Spanish-speaking school. There is some resistance, but I know they will do well once we get there.

Maggy is still getting bigger and the baby seems very content to stay inside! She is kicking and moving a lot. We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and we will know if everything is still normal. Our only concern at this point would be a possible breach birth if she is not in position. Our trust is in God.

Praise

• That God has provided for the air fare to Ecuador as well as the training in preparation for the evaluation.
• That Maggy is feeling good still (but tired!)
• Another month with all the bills paid

Prayer

• God's provision for the rest of the evaluation cost (about $2000)
• Safety in David's travel to/in/back from Ecuador
• Healthy delivery of baby Jennifer
• Our monthly financial support needs

September Newsletter

September 2, 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

A lot has been happening with the Mead family and we want to keep you up to date on all the goings on. We have been trying to keep in touch with most everyone in one form or another, but it looks like sending out a regular news letter is going to be the most effective way to keep everyone up to date. Especially as our lives change so quickly!

We want to make sure everyone is filled in on what has brought us to this point, so here are the details.

David has spent the last 2 years getting his Commercial pilot’s license and aircraft mechanic’s certificates. We both feel strongly that God was leading us into full time mission’s work after our construction business failed and he has provided tremendously to accomplish all that David needed to fulfill the requirements of most aviation mission’s organizations.

At the beginning, it seemed obvious that we should go to Ecuador, where Maggy is from, to serve with Mission Aviation Fellowship. But as time went on, we realized God doesn’t always work in the obvious ways, so we expanded our search to see if God may be leading us to work elsewhere. We moved up to Waxhaw, NC where David was invited by JAARS to do a maintenance internship. It was a great opportunity to build skills and to get a close first hand look at how JAARS operates. Maggy and the kids enjoyed the time as well, connecting with missionaries who were returning from overseas or headed back.

As we searched for God’s leading, he made it very plain that we were indeed uniquely prepared to serve in Ecuador. But instead of heading through the normal channels of the US branch of MAF, we applied to the Ecuadorian run branch called Alas de Socorro – Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government is no longer issuing pilot’s or mechanic’s licenses to foreigners, so it has been very difficult for MAF to staff the work in Ecuador. David will be able to gain Ecuadorian citizenship because he is married to an Ecuadorian citizen. Thankfully, he will not have to give up his American citizenship as Ecuador recognizes dual citizenship.

Our application to ADSE has been reviewed and is only pending David’s flight evaluation down in Ecuador. We are making plans for David to go down to spend about a week or so to do the evaluation and he will also use the opportunity to try to arrange housing, get information on the schools for the kids and be more informed in general about our new lives there.

There will be costs involved with the trip as the cost of the travel and evaluation itself is the responsibility of the applicant. David will need to brush up on his skills in the airplane before going down as it has been about 5 months since he has flown. We know God will provide for these costs if we are following his will, so we depend on him.

In the mean time, Maggy has been busy adding to the family! Our kids are now: Joni Karina, 12 and in 7th grade; Joshua, 10 and in 5th grade; Jonathan, 14 months; and baby Jennifer is due the middle of September. The older kids have such a great attitude about moving and even about going to a Spanish speaking school. They have been to Ecuador numerous times, although not specifically to the jungle, so they are somewhat familiar. Maggy, also, is very excited to be going. Even with the little ones, she knows we will be well taken care of there. She has had a burden for many years to work among her own people and is very happy God finally got through to me to do that!

We will be living in a little town called Shell in the province of Pastaza. The town was named after Shell oil who continues to do much work down there. It also is the same town where Nate Saint lived with his family. (If you haven’t seen the movie The End of the Spear yet, please do!)

Our plans at this point will be to move in early January. Since we are joining the Ecuadorian branch of MAF, things are a little different. All of their applicants to date have come from Ecuador, so we are unique in that we will be coming from the U.S. Most of the details of the move and our financial support are going to be largely up to us. I still don’t have all the details and we are learning as we go, but we are very comfortable with the arrangements so far and are trusting in God to supply as he so faithfully has been doing.

Until our application is finalized after my flight evaluation, we are unable to receive donations through MAF. Should you desire to send donations, you can send them directly to us for the time being and we will advise as soon as that changes.

We are so grateful for your prayers that have helped us to this point. We ask that you commit to continued prayer for us as the details continue to be worked out and our progress in getting to Ecuador proceeds. Our blog is updated about weekly and you can find specific prayer requests and praises on there. www.davidmeadfamily.blogspot.com

Right now our prayer requests are: health for mommy and baby, good decisions about details leading up to moving, funds for the trip to Ecuador and evaluation, strength to continue trusting God.

We commit everything we do to God,


David, Maggy, Joni Karina, Joshua, Jonathan, Jennifer