God can move mountains!

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Our team met this morning for our LAST meeting...we leave Monday, August 1!!! Emotions of excitement and anxiety were evident. This is a 3-week journey unlike any other. We were struck with gratitude to our heavenly Father for where he's taken us on this journey so far: from the starting point of building a team, to realizing the HUGE financial obligation we had, and developing an appropriate itinerary: each of these were like MOUNTAINS to us; mountains we weren't sure we could climb, never mind move.

And we couldn't, NOT of ourselves. But, God could AND did. We just had to trust and allow God to use us. We realized that not only did God move the mountains, He made our big mountains EVEN BIGGER -- He helped us surpass all the goals we set for our team.
Because of that, we can't wait to see the mountain ahead of us in Marare and what God does with that.

Feel free to stop by the Northgate Baptist church parking lot (132 Ave and 95 Street) on Monday at 2:30 pm to see us off, and thank God with us for the journey ahead.

A most recent communication from Moses (FH Mbale) reads: The people of Marare are determined to cement their relationship with North Gate and are very much looking forward to this coming visit.

Update to Fundraising Goals. Thanks for your help!

Alright, well if you haven’t heard, our team met our goal for this year and the cash is still likely rolling in. Thank you so much to everyone that sponsored us by empties, donating items for the garage sale, coming to the garage sale, purchasing plants at the perennial sale and pretty much everything else we’ve done for fundraising…your support and encouragement is truly amazing.

As Shirley mentioned, it has definitely RAINED great successes on our team. I cannot believe we made our goal with pretty much three weeks to spare.

To update you guys, I am only $350 shy of my personal goal and the funds are still trickling in from all sorts of places I never expected. Truly, it was a lot of fun running laps with Nathan and Tim. I think the run to Africa was a tough one for most because of the down pour but everyone completed their goals. I ended up doubling my goal because Nathan (the natural sales mentality sold me) wanted to pace out 30 laps.

It’s a wonderful, calming and encouraging thought to see how everyone is so awesome. Any extra funds raised will be rolled over to next year’s project and team. (= I hope we can see off the next team with a grand first start!

Let It Rain!

A recurring theme in all our fundraising events this year, was "RAIN". Yes, we had to work our way around that for each event! It made things challenging, but also gave cause for reflection. God showed us with each event that He was in control, and he literally 'poured' blessing after blessing on each team member, and Northgate as a whole. We've not only reached our financial goal, but we've surpassed it (with 3 weeks to go). We've also received so many encouraging comments from many of you, AND from MANY in our community at large!

Malachi 3:10 comes to mind: 'Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."' We trusted, and He really did answer just like He said.

We wound up our fundraising events for the 2011 Marare team with a 'perennial plant sale' this afternoon (graciously sponsored by Wallish Greenhouses), and yes, it rained AGAIN! However, we had so much fun interacting with fellow Northgaters, friends, family, AND many community members that the rain didn't impact us negatively. We were also blessed with another $980 to use towards Marare!


Praise the Lord...especially when it rains!

Running in the RAIN

We had our 2nd annual CGS Run/Walk to Africa yesterday. It POURED. Because of that we didn't have to deal with mosquitoes (it was too cold for them), and we had our own cooling down mechanism: the rain.



16 participants made it out for the morning, and braved the elements, all to help overcome poverty in Marare, Uganda. It was a SUCCESS.

Because of the efforts of these 16 participants, and the many of you that sponsored a participant, we raised over $3900!


These funds brought us over and above our goal of $30,000! Glory and honor to God!