One Month Down

Salamamleekum,
      Our first month is about over and we have learned much and been challenged a lot throughout these past few weeks. Upon arriving, we found the schedule to be quite full, but we were still getting to know people and Elias was having a blast. I, Jess, was having a little bit of a more difficult time adjusting back to the rigorous Harrisburg Discipleship Center (HDC) schedule. Having been here before, it was a bit of a challenge to adjust back to community living and having all my days scheduled out for me. As we began to adjust however, it became a bit easier for me, but we also began to feel the strain of the lack of time with each other. This has been a good lesson in figuring out our boundaries and that we need to put our relationship before our ministry. During our first year of marriage we stepped down from our church responsibilities so we did not encounter this that much, but we feel that it is good for us to learn this now before we get on the field because it is likely that we will encounter having to set boundaries in ministry at that time as well.
     But, on a more positive note, now that we have set more boundaries and found more ways for Elias and I to spend time together, we are developing some amazing new relationships with the other participants in the house. We are also learning a lot about God and listening to His voice. We are finding that we are being stretched and challenged through teachings on the Holy Spirit, dying to self, spiritual warfare, prayer, spiritual streams and other areas that we will be able to take with us to the Gambia and throughout the rest of our lives.
    Also, this morning, we found some amazing language study tools that we will be using to learn Mandinka, which is one of the three different language that we may be learning and using. We can now greet each other, which is very important in Gambian culture, and makes us very excited.
     I feel like this post is a bit all over the place, but I haven't updated the blog in awhile and I don't want it to be so long that it is unreadable. If you have any questions please feel free to ask! Blessings to all of you!

Jess

Let the training begin!

    Elias and I have arrived in Harrisburg, PA for our two and a half months of training at the Harrisburg Discipleship Center (HDC). We left for PA Friday the 11th and stayed with my (Jessica) sister Ashley. We had our commissioning on Sunday and then that evening we arrived at HDC with all of the YES (Youth Evangelism Service) participants, two particpants in GO! and one long termer. This week as been very full with exercise beginning at 6:00 or 6:30 Monday through Friday and ending with a variety of activities around 8:30 at night. We then have to be in rooms at 10:15, which is no issue for Elias and I, as we have been very tired. Even though the schedule is packed we have already been stretched and we are enjoying growing deeper in our relationships with Christ.
    We also wanted to let everyone know that we have received wonderful news. We have been given a $10,000 check from an anonymous donor, which puts us at nearly full funding! Elias and I weren't sure when we would be able to leave for Africa because we didn't have enough funds, but with this donation we are put at almost full funding and we should be able to leave in early December or somewhere around there. Thank you so much for your prayers as you can see they have paid off! Below I am going to list some praises and prayer requests so you know how to better pray for us and you can see how the prayers that you have prayed for us have been answered.

Prayer requests:
-That Elias and I will find the necessary alone time that we need as a couple while living in a house with 40 people.
-That we will be able to go deeper in our relationship with Christ and each other
-That God will prepare us for the Gambia and the Gambia for us

Praises:
-Almost being at full funding!
-Arriving in Harrisburg safely and beginning to adjust
-Being with other young adult with the same vision as us.

Blessings to all of you and thank you for your continued support!

Update

We realized that it has been awhile since we updated the blog and some of you may be wondering where we are at. We are almost half way there! Right now if we had 60 people willing to pledge $20 a month we would be all the way there! This is not a very big number considering the number of you that have supported us already. If you feel as though this is something that you could do just let us know and we will send you all of the information that you need. We also wanted to remind everyone that New Bremen will be hosting a BBQ pork or pulled pork dinner on Sept. 13th in the fellowship hall right after church to help us raise additional funds. Elias and I won't be there for this dinner because we will be in Pennsylvania for our commissioning that evening. If you live down that way and would like to come it will be at Mount Joy Mennonite church in Mount Joy, PA beginning at 7. We are unsure if our parents will be able to stay for the entire service so it would be wonderful if we could have some friends and extended family join with us! We will try to continue to keep you updated as we continue to receive updates. Blessings!

Elias and Jess

So we had our dinner Friday evening and it went really well. We raised about $4100 so we are roughly a third of the way to our goal! This isn't to say that we don't still have a ways to go, but we are doing well considering the short period of time we have been fundraising. I want to thank all of you for bringing us this far this quickly. God has blessed us in so many ways and the journey has just begun! We will be leaving for training Sept. 12th and our commissioning will be the 13th. We still have a lot of packing to do, but we are very excited to begin training and see what the Lord has in store for us there. Thank you all again for your support!

Fundraiser and update

Hello everyone! We just wanted to you let you all know that we will be having a dinner Friday evening at Croghan Mennonite Church from 5-7:30. Cost is $9 for adults, $5 for children 6-12 and 5 and under are free. We will be having pork loin, cole slaw, potatoes, corn, bread and pie for dessert. Take-outs will be available as well. So far we are doing fairly well with fundraising. We have enough for training in Sept. which is a huge blessing, but we still have a long ways to go before we have enough to leave for Africa. If you need a support letter or pledge form please let us know. Thank you for all of your support thus far, you are all such a blessing to us and we are so excited to have this opportunity to serve our Lord in this way, while having a life changing experience at the same time. Blessings to all of you!

Jessica and Elias

The beginning of a new adventure.

First off I want to apologize to all of you that have already tried to look at our blog and found nothing. I just want to update everyone on where we are at. First of all for those of you who don't really know our story, we are planning on serving in The Gambia, West Africa for a year through a mission internship through Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM). We received our budget in June and we have learned that we need to raise $31,298 for time that we will be serving. This will cover our stateside expenses such as trainings and administration costs along with all of our overseas costs like plane tickets, health insurance, basic needs, etc. I'm not sure how much we have raised so far since we just began the fund raising process. Currently we need to have $3000.00 by September for training, however we would love to have as much raised by that time as possible. 

Recently we were able to sit down with Gary and Denise and discuss some of the things that we will be experiencing in The Gambia along with how we will be living and what we might be doing. Jessica is hoping with work with a group called "My Sister's Company" which teaches women how to sew and make jewelry so that they can be self-employed. Elias could be helping a local carpenter or possibly focus more on relationship building and evangelizing. 

We are very excited for this next chapter of our lives and we feel so blessed that we are able to share it with all of you. You will notice that on our prayer cards the address for donations is a physical street address, if you want to donate and haven't yet please send all donations to P.O. Box 417 Lowville, NY 13367. Blessings to all of you and we will keep you updated as we continue on this journey!

Elias and Jessica Zehr