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Give Online: You can give to our ministry online using Wycliffe's web form for donating to missionaries. Our member account is "286076", and our location is currently "USA". Electronic Funds Transfer: Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) is an optional service that authorizes Wycliffe to deduct your gifts automatically from your checking or savings account. EFT saves you time and money, avoiding postage and check costs and ensuring that your checks won't be delayed or lost in the mail. It also helps Wycliffe achieve better stewardship of your gifts by reducing processing time and costs. You can fill out this form, print it, and send it to Wycliffe in the mail. Find out more about Electronic Funds Transfer or jump directly to the PDF form. Give by Phone: To make a credit card contribution by phone, please call Wycliffe's Online Giving Services toll free at: 1-800-WYCLIFFE ext. 3705 (1-800-992-5433) Office hours: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. Other Ways To Give: Find out about other ways to give at Wycliffe's Give Page. |
Welcome!
Welcome to Illuminating the Word! We built this site to help us share our news and information about our ministry with Wycliffe, where we partner in the work of Bible translation. Please explore our blog entries, photos, and newsletters. Jeremy & Sara Brown The Sound Of A Storm It's starts gently. The wind blowing through the trees makes the leaves rustle. Then the rumble of far off thunder. The wind picks up and tree branches sway. The rain starts, a slow tattoo on the tin roof. Within a few minutes, the rain is battering the trees and the ground, the wind flinging the deluge in first one direction and then another. Sometimes the sound of the rain and the wind is so loud that it drowns out the thunder, almost. Then the rain abates a little and thunder asserts its dominance, only to be challenged again moments later. A crack of thunder resounds and the battle is joined in earnest. As the rain and wind compete with the thunder, I am thankful to be inside, describing the sounds for you. Our Vacation In Summary We promised more details about our vacation and here it is! We left Congo on Monday night, Jan 14th and arrive in San Francisco on the evening of Jan 15th after around 30 hours of travel. From there, it's a two hour drive to Jeremy's parent's house in the Sacramento area. We wore our warmest clothes for the trip home, but they were no where near warm enough for the US in the winter (except Florida maybe?). So the next day, after we went to the dentist, we got our winter clothes out of storage and did some laundry. Then we were off to Portland to spend time with Sara's family. We went to an ice hockey game (something Sara's family's done since she was in junior high) and she and her sister went on their traditional shopping trip to the Woodburn outlets ended by a caramel apple from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We met up for a few moments with Jessica's mom, sister, sister-in-law and niece (the same Jessica who got married here in October) to drop off some things, including CDs of wedding pictures. We had lunch with Sara's Grandma and one of her uncles. We also spent an afternoon with one of Sara's friends from high school and had lunch with a friend from college. The day before we left to go back to Sacramento we celebrated Christmas a few days early. That evening, all of Sara's cousins on her Mom's side except one and their families got together for a family dinner of taco salad and Christmas carols and sharing. On Christmas Eve, we headed back to Sacramento. During Christmas and the week following, we spent a lot of time with Jeremy's family. We ate dinner together almost every evening. The siblings played a lot of Wii and had loads of fun ribbing each other. We moved our boxes out of the storage unit and put them in a trailer which Sara's parents drove to Oregon. They are now storing most of our worldly goods in their basement. From Jan 7th to 12th, Sara flew to Austin, Texas to meet up with two of her best friends. While they talked and shopped and watched movies, Jeremy and his dad went up to the Santa Cruz mountains and added a canvas roof to the deck and slept out under the stars. Throughout our time at home, we shopped for things that are difficult to buy or very expensive in Congo. We spent our last few days finishing our shopping and seeing our family, and then on Jan 17th, we got on a plane and headed back to Congo. We've spent the past week and a half unpacking and reorganizing and trying to get over our jetlag. Smooth Travel We've arrived safely in Congo and, although the trip was long, it was the most hassle-free trip to Congo we could hope for. We made all our flights, all our bags arrived, and we were waved through customs in Congo. A few days ago, Lydia (our boss) sent us an e-mail inviting us to dinner after we got in. She also arranged for someone to come pick us up at the airport. We had originally been planning on just getting taxis, so that was a very nice surprise. We're thankful to be home safely and to have such thoughtful colleagues/friends. Packing Up When every pound counts, you begin to look for the most efficient way to pack. In France, we discovered that our suitcases were kind of heavy, so instead of buying more suitcases we went with boxes. This allowed us to pack more household items and Jeremy did a lot of work so that we made use of the maximum weight without going over. The boxes were a bit beat up when they arrived in Congo, but everything was intact. This trip we decided to forgo suitcases for our checked bags in favor of boxes (again mostly household items -- like cutting boards which we can't buy in Congo). Jeremy found canvas bags online designed to hold the boxes and ordered several. Over the past week, he carefully arranged everything for the optimum balance of weight and being full enough that the contents won't shift too much. This was a major effort that consumed several hours each day. We weighed them this evening at the airport and made a few minor adjustments. Hopefully our boxes will arrive in better shape this time. Up In The Air Our vacation time has come to an end. I'm writing from a hotel in San Fransisco. We're staying overnight here because we have an early flight tomorrow. We've had a great time visiting with our family and friends. I'll write about our vacation in a few days and try to put up a photo album. Please pray for safe travels for us. - Sara Archive... | Join Our E-mail List! Prayers
Jungle Trading Post
We've just opened the "Jungle Trading Post" on our website.
Now, in the course of your normal online shopping, you can help provide funds for our ministry. It's like the modern-day version of tentmaking! Visit the Jungle Trading Post! |
