Richly Supplied

A History Buff's Heaven

2012-01-27T14:30:00.003-05:00

As part of our trip to northern Virginia this past week, we did a whirlwind day of sight seeing in our nation's capital.

Caleb thought he had died and gone to a history buff's form of heaven.

Seriously, I have never seen someone so giddy to see the Lincoln Memorial...or General Washington's uniform...or the Wright Brothers' plane...or the White House.

Nor have I ever answered the question, "Was 'this or that or so and so' familiar to our founding fathers?" more times than I did last week... as in "No, Caleb, I don't think the hot dog stand would have been familiar to the founding fathers."

Nathan very much enjoyed the sight seeing too and was quite impressed with the Washington monument being closed because of the earthquake. He will tell you about it again (and again and again) if you give him the chance. He especially liked the airplanes at the Air and Space Museum and the construction equipment, which seemed to be everywhere.

On another fun note, the Saturday morning we were there, the adults were awoken by cries of "SNOW! IT SNOWED!" ringing through the house. The winter weather was a pleasant surprise and provided lots of fun sledding and snow shoveling (at least the kids thought that it was fun!)

It was truly a blessed trip, full of priceless time with friends and lots of new memories to cherish.

A Corner (Jan. Newsletter)

2012-01-25T13:24:00.002-05:00

The month of January is unique in that it is very much like a corner in time. It is both a season to start new beginnings and a time for looking back at what has passed.

This January, we look back over 2011 and see a year of “calling.” God wooed our hearts for His purposes in the spring, brought us through the application process with Wycliffe in the summer, and into our first training in the fall. Now that January 2012 is here, we are at a corner, peering around the edge, in hopes of a glimpse of what lies ahead.

One thing we do know is that God has begun 2012 off with a bang and is accomplishing mighty works in bringing together our prayer and financial support team. In just the first three weeks of 2012, God increased our pledge support by 6%, up to 10% total. He has increased our prayer team to include 42 different families who have committed to praying for us regularly.

Furthermore, He allowed us to visit northern VA to see friends that we have not seen in years. (He also gifted us with some snow and sledding time while we were there- something we will not see much of in Brazil or Moz!) The time we were able to share with these friends was priceless.

We were also able to use this visit to speak at the First Baptist Church of Alexandria. In many ways, speaking there was like going home for us. FBCA is where we first met, where we were discipled early on in our faith and where we both went on our first mission trip. We fully believe God is going to use the friendships we have in NoVA to have a long-term impact for the Bibleless of Mozambique.

What will the rest of 2012 hold? That is for God to know and for us to find out. Our hearts’ desire is that 2012 will find us fully funded, trained and heading to language school by early Fall. To that end, we will continue to stay busy meeting with people, speaking at churches and sharing the needs of the Bibleless of Mozambique throughout 2012.

What does 2012 hold for you? Would you consider praying specifically in regards to your role in our ministry? Perhaps 2012 will find you partnering with us financially or through prayer so that the Bibleless of Mozambique will not have to wait any longer to hear and receive the Word of God. We are incredibly thankful for those who have already partnered with us and look forward to seeing the awesome works of God just around the corner!!

To God be the glory,
David and Wendi Richards

A New Day's Blessings

2012-01-20T10:05:00.001-05:00

The sun is up, a new day has dawned...
It is time to sing Your song again...
For this post will never be long enough to list the 10000's of blessings or reasons...

And today...
Whatever may pass...
And whatever lies before me...
Let me be singing when evening comes.

Trenches

2012-01-16T13:48:00.001-05:00

The boys have a new favorite game around here called "Building Trenches from which to Attack the General Cornwallis"...otherwise known as "Digging Deep Holes in the Garden from which to Watch our Neighbor."

I have to say it is better than an older version of the game which had them digging holes right in the middle of the yard...and our neighbor, nicknamed the honorable General Cornwallis by my favorite history buff, does not seem to mind in the least that the boys are planning on digging a trench to his basement to fill it up with water, bombs and alligators, which is what Caleb told him the other day.

I think it was even special that Da got in on the digging trenches game, digging the holes much deeper for the boys than they ever could get them and adding steps into one of them so Nathan could get in and out.

But then it rained.

Now the new favorite game around here is called "Clearing Water and Mud from the Trenches" also known as "Dumping a Bucket of Muddy Water on your Little Brother." Yup. A bucketful of cold, muddy water right on top of Nathan's head.

I wish I had pictures to share, but alas, when your three year old comes running into the kitchen crying, shivering and covered from head to toe with mud, your first instinct is not to run for the camera...or it might be if your hands weren't covered with hamburger meat from cooking dinner and if your six your old wasn't following close behind covered with mud as well.

I have to give the boys credit where credit is due though. Although they were covered and dripping in mud from head to toe, they took off their muddy boots before coming inside. I guess I trained them right. No muddy boots in the house...muddy boys...that is an entirely different story.

The next day David, Caleb and Nathan were sharing the joys of the "Dumping a Bucket of Muddy Water on Your Little Brother" game with another one of our neighbors, who chuckled and asked Caleb, "Why on earth did you pour muddy water on your brother?" Caleb thought for a moment, grinned real big and replied, "Because he wasn't looking." Makes perfect sense to me.

Guess it is just another day in the trenches around here....