This is our newsletter we’ve been trying to send out for a week. For some reason our email program won’t let us send it so I’m posting it to the site and hoping everyone on our email list checks the website periodically!

Hello friends and family,

Praise the Lord, our travel portion of the Pockets of Change project is now done. It has been quite the ride and it’s hard to believe our travels are over. After some personal travel time we’re on right now, we will be starting the really hard part of our project: assembling all we’ve gathered into the book.

We started this project not really sure what we would find. We prayed that God would open our eyes to see what He wanted us to see. Working with Hungry for Life communications staff members Ryan and Corrina, we crafted a mission statement to keep our focus. None of us knew if the vision would match the outcome, that was in God’s hands. We prayerfully considered the mission statement and felt that it stated what God was calling us to do.

Reflecting on our travels, I know half the mission statement has been completed. We have found ’specific stories of spiritual and physical transformation of people and communities’.

Now we must work to fulfill the second half of the mission statement, ‘we desire to motivate individuals to be a part of a global movement of compassion and justice, realizing their potential to effect global change’.

All this travel means nothing unless people are called to action through the stories gathered, through the photos captured. Staring this January we will be immersing ourselves in this work, to create a book that will inspire, that will motivate, that will call people to action.

We’ll be working at the Hungry for Life office in Chilliwack. If you’re curious about what we’re up to or how the work is going, feel free to email or call. We’d love to share what we’re learning and how the work is progressing.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray that we’re able to work through all that we have experienced. It is overwhelming just thinking about the amount of places we’ve been, people we’ve interviewed and things we’ve seen. I don’t know how we’re going to assemble it into some sort of cohesive work so your prayers are very much appreciated and needed.

Also please pray that we’re able to find an affordable place to live as we work on the book. Our fundraising efforts only covered our travel portion. While we have some funds left over it’s not enough to cover rent, food, gas and the like while we work on the book for the next three to five months. Given we have no income coming in at this point, we are relying solely on God that He will provide for our ‘daily bread’.

Finally, we just want to praise God for all of you, our faithful prayer and financial partners in this project. We literally could not have done this project without you. While our Pockets of Change project is only halfway done now, I know it won’t seem as interesting when we’re sitting in an office pounding the keys eight hours a day. So while we’re still away, it seems the right time to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support. Because of you, we were able to gather what we needed to make this project come together.

Thank you.

In Christ,
Lorene and Justin

p.s. While we are taking some time to travel on our own, we are continuing to update the blog as we find internet and inspiration. Please continue to check out www.pocketsofchange.org for more stories and photos from the road.