Cool Story?

As I told you guys in my last blog, we finally got our tickets to Lima purchased, but I didn't really share the awesome story behind it.

Once upon a time, we (me and Scott) were feeling extremely pressured to purchase tickets from a few different people. Our contacts in both Lima and Iquitos were getting kind of antsy and impatient since we didn't have any set in stone dates of arriving which meant no set in stone plans for any of our Outreach. Our school leaders -Deb and Jeff- needed to know our dates and plans which we didn't have. Students needed to know when we're flying and how much airfare was going to cost, but the cost depended on the day we bought tickets, but we couldn't buy tickets without all the students having their money in. The accounting department was trying to help us work on our budget, but we couldn't do that without knowing the exact amount of days we were going to be there and the exact amount of the airline tickets. So as leaders, me and Scott (well I guess I should speak more for myself but I feel like he would say the same thing) were getting kind of overwhelmed.

It came down to our biggest factor, students having money available to purchase tickets. As we kept waiting for students to get their money in, ticket prices kept going up. So 2 weeks ago, prices were $1345 from Mpls to Lima, then at the beginning of last week, they had gone up to $1473. When it was already a struggle for finances to come in, having them jump that high in a matter of days was pretty disheartening. Basically the only people that had money to purchase tickets on Monday of last week were me, Scott, and one other team member. Even though that was the case, we knew tickets needed to be bought or we were going to run into more problems and higher prices, so me and Scott took some time to pray. We decided to take a huge step of faith. We asked God which day would be best to buy tickets, and we really felt like He was saying Thursday. So we decided to go for it, and trust that He knew this was the best day to do it.

We told the team on Monday -the 21st- that they needed to have their money for airfare in their accounts by Wednesday so we could book the tickets and have them purchased by Thursday. Like I said, most of the team really needed to see a lot of money come in before that was possible, and only having two days to do it seemed kind of intimidating. Especially for one team member, Brian who needed basically every dollar of that price to appear in a matter of two days. I explained that we trusted that God was going to provide funds for every person to be on that Outreach, but if we needed to book separate flights for people who didn't have their money in by Wednesday, that they would just have to come to Peru later. Honestly, it's a scary thought, having one or two students fly separately from the team, but it's been done a lot before so we knew it might happen, especially if Brian didn't have ANY of his Outreach money at that point.

But of course, God provided! Not just for the whole team, but especially for Brian. He made some phone calls that afternoon, and the next day someone came and gave him $3500!! Not just to cover the plane ticket we needed to buy ASAP, but his whole Outreach!! I was completely blown away. I mean I've been telling the team this whole time that if we do the possible, God will do the impossible. It's a YWAM phrase we use all the time, saying basically if we do what we can, make phone calls, send out support letters and such, that God will do what seems to be the impossible and provide everything we need. But to see it take place in such a huge way was such an encouragement! I really felt like God was not just giving a huge blessing to Brian, but for our whole Outreach. I'm still excited about it!

Oh and that's not it. Ticket prices stayed the same steep price up until I emailed our travel agent on Wednesday. Coincidentally, when she booked the tickets after all of our money was provided, the prices went down to $1380. Which meant when our tickets were actually purchased on Thursday (because the airlines have a 24 hour booking period, they have to be booked a day before they're bought), they were about a hundred bucks cheaper than the week before. Uhhh thank you Jesus??? And thank you also for telling us which day would be best and cheapest to buy the tickets?? Yeah, I was pretty pumped. God is so good and even though I thought it was more convenient to give the students a couple days notice and buy the tickets at the end of the week, God knew the prices were going to come back down and because we chose to trust Him, we saved a good amount!

Hooray Ashna!
So the whole team was pretty excited, it was a really awesome way we got to see God provide. Thought I'd share it with you guys. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers, it obviously helped! And please continue to pray for us as Outreach is getting closer and closer! We leave for Peru in 18 days!!