STINT Briefing and A Visa Update

Last night, I got back to Little Rock after a week-long training conference in Chicago. My team and I joined about 400 STINTers going to over 50 different countries for the week. I think we all came away refreshed and encouraged... and eager to get to Bologna. It was a great experience to be together as a team (minus Emily, our teammate from the UK) and celebrate God's provision while preparing for the upcoming year. Most of our time was spent in meetings and seminars over different aspects of living and working overseas. As many of you know, our team is still without visas. Though the situation is looking better, we still need prayer that God would provide these visas in time for us to leave on our planned departure date. It was amazing to be in a community of people where the 70 STINTers from our region (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc.) actually came together to pray specifically over our visa situation.

Our STINT team minus Emily Spicer (me, Matt and Ashley Walton, and our directors, Jesse and Tricia Marcos)

The conference was eye-opening. God is doing so many things around the world. We took shuttles from the airport to the hotel, and it was crazy to be surrounded by hundreds of people talking about going to so many different places...Slovenia, Australia, France, Venezuela...just to name a few. My roommates were two girls from a team going to Ioannina, Greece who I had met at our Intern Kickoff Weekend in April. We had a great time catching up and talking about what God had done over the summer.

On our last night at the conference, Crusade staff commissioned us and prayed over us in a native language from the area of the world we are going to. Being prayed over in Italian was a crazy experience--the reality of going back overseas is still sinking in for me. At the end of our time together, we watched this short video:

It really captured my heart. It's so easy to get tunnel vision and forget about the greater purpose of what God is doing around the world. Looking forward to staying in touch with those of you reading and excited to write to you from Bologna!

Thank you for your prayers, and here are a few new requests:

• Praise God for providing for everyone on our team and for blessing us with time together in the U.S. before we go overseas.
• Please continue to pray for the visa situation. Things are moving forward, but we still need prayer that we will be able to get our visas by our planned departure date, September 12.
• Please pray for our team as we transition overseas and begin searching for apartments. Pray that we would be unified and that God would work in and through us on campus.
• Pray for the students in Bologna. Pray that God would continue to prepare their hearts and orchestrate interactions with the people He would have us meet.