November Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

October was probably one of the more exciting and eventful months for us as a family in awhile! Mostly for David, but it has impacted us as a family greatly.

The happiest and most exciting news for us is that we have been officially accepted into the Alas de Socorro – Ecuador (ADSE) program! David’s trip to Ecuador was a great success as he passed both the flying and maintenance portions of the technical evaluation. After a meeting with the Board of Directors for ADSE, it was determined that David and family would be a great fit. So, upon substantially meeting all the requirements to join, we have been invited! The trip was a lot of fun and David was able to gather a lot of information about our eventual move to Ecuador and we are much more prepared to go.

We are so grateful to God first for leading us so patiently to this outcome. He has provided so incredibly for us emotionally and spiritually. We have also seen his bountiful provision physically as he has faithfully given us what we needed exactly when we needed it. We are grateful to many of you who have supported us with prayer, emotional support and those who have given financially to make this all a reality. We are so thankful for the wonderful circle of friends and family that God has blessed us with to be part of our team.

Our original plans were to travel to Ecuador in January, but that has changed a bit. The next step for David’s training is to spend 8 weeks in Idaho, where MAF’s headquarters is located to receive “standardization” training. David will participate in the training program that all MAF pilots and mechanics go through so that everyone is doing things the same way. This will take place from February 22 until April 15th. Upon returning to Tampa, the kids will only have about a month and half to finish school, so we will wait until then to travel to Ecuador. Ecuador’s school schedule is roughly the same as here, so it works out great for the kids to go during the “summer vacation” and start school at the beginning of the year next year.

In the mean time, we will be keeping busy making preparations to travel. David is still taking classes towards his Bachelors degree and gathering information to help make the Ecuador program more successful upon arriving there. Maggy is also exploring further educational opportunities to continue her studies as well.

The costs of David’s training in Idaho will be covered by program funds from ADSE, but the trip and our expenses there will still have to be covered by us. The same is true for the move to Ecuador. We are confident that God will provide for these expenses just as he has done for us to date. You can help us by praying for us as well that God will provide. We are still exploring options as to the best mode of travel. Surprisingly, once hotels, gas and meals are accounted for, driving becomes quite a bit more expensive than flying us there! But we will need a vehicle once we are there, so we are looking at options as to what would be the best way to get us to Idaho and back.

Our funding is solely donor supported at this point. Gifts can be given to us through Three Strand Cord, whose information is at the bottom of this letter. They are a non-profit company that is dedicated to channeling funds to missionaries. You will be issued a tax receipt so that your gift is tax-deductible. If you are interested in more information about becoming a regular or one-time donor, you can request it. We will make available any information you would like such as our budgets, expenses and accountability methods. We are new to this and learning about how this stuff works too, so be patient with us!

We also would like to recruit regular praying partners who commit to praying regularly for us, the program and the people we will be serving. We will post pray requests as well as results and answers to those prayers routinely. We ask that you keep in contact with us to let us know that we have your prayer support. This will be critical for us to be assured that we won’t be alone! We know we are part of a body and we need the feedback and communication! Let us know if you would be interested in that.

Please visit our blog at http://davidmeadfamily.blogspot.com for more updates.

We commit everything we do to God,

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

Donations can be made to: Three Stand Cord, PO Box 9691, Tampa, FL 33674 or online with credit card at www.3strandcord.org. Specify “Mead” as the particular project to route your donation.