18 days!

I'm leaving for Honduras in 18 days! I can't believe that the time has gone so quickly! I finish my last week of work this week and then I have oh, about a week and a half to get ready to leave!

If you live in the Dallas or Ft. Worth areas, I'm being "introduced" at my 2 churches on the following dates, and would love if you could come:

Sunday, July 1: McKinney Memorial Bible Church, Ft. Worth, TX
Services are at 9am and 10:30. I will be introduced at the end of both services.
McKinney is the church I attended while I went to TCU. I went with a group of students from Mckinney to Urbana, the missions conference where I found out about the teaching position with World Gospel Outreach.

Sunday, July 8: Richland Bible Fellowship Church, Richardson, TX
Services are at 8:30, 10, and 11:30. I don't know the details yet of which services or when during the service the introduction will take place.
RBF is the church I grew up in! I went on my first mission trip while in the youth group at RBF. This trip is one of the things God used to get me interested in missions.

During the introduction, they will tell the congregation who I am, what I will be doing, and pray for me.

• Please continue to pray that my passport will arrive in time! I will call them by the end of the week to see about it if I haven't received it yet.
• Also please be praying for me and my family and friends as I'm starting the "goodbye" process. My twin brother, Robbie, is working at camp and I'm going to see him this weekend to say "bye." I'm very thankful for the technology that we have now. If I was doing this about 10 years or so ago, it would have been a lot harder to keep in touch.
• Please also pray that I would spend these last few weeks wisely and get everything finished that I need to at home.

Plane Tickets

I bought my plane tickets! This actually happened a few weeks ago, but I guess I haven't mentioned it yet. I'll be leaving Dallas on July 12th and will return on November 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving. I'll be home until about January 2nd (I haven't gotten those plane tickets yet). On July 12th, I fly from DFW to Houston, then in Houston i get on a plane with at least 2 other teachers I will be working with and we fly to Tegucigalpa!! I'll have about a week or so to get settled and figure things out. Then training/orientation starts on July 23rd and the first day of school is that next week (which I guess would be the 30th).

Every day I get a little more excited about going! It will be sad leaving, but I know I will be back in November, so it's not so bad.

Just pray that my passport comes when it's supposed to! I ordered it at the beginning of April and they told me it should be here in the middle of June...which would be next week! I've heard about a lot of passports taking longer than expected, but hopefully the month between the expected arrival date and July 12th will be enough time! I'm not too worried about it because God has provided so much already. Pretty much everything I've needed so far has fallen right into place! It's confirming that this is really what I'm supposed to be doing!

Also please pray for me as I try to figure out which insurance plan to get. This is one of the first "grown up" decisions I've had to make...besides moving to Honduras :).

Thanks and God bless!

My students!

I just learned the names of the students of my class!
Kevin, Julio, and Elli! Please pray for them!

Wow!

Well, all I have to say really is that God is pretty amazing! I currently have 112% of my support raised/pledged. Just 2 weeks ago, I was talking with they guy in charge of missions stuff at my church in Fort Worth about what else i needed to do besides send out letters about my trip because I only had about 25% of what i needed. And what have I done?? Pray. That's it. This has been a totally humbling and amazing blessing! In case you were wondering what happens with the extra money...it still goes into my account in case something happens like people that pledged to give money forget or aren't able to for some reason for a month or two, or an unexpected expense comes up. They said they like for us to have at least 2 months worth of money in "reserve" in our account just in case. So, that's it! Thanks so much to all of you have partnered with me financially and through prayer!

Here are some prayer requests:
1. Pray that I find a good deal on plane tickets.
2. Pray that my passport comes in when it's supposed to (by mid-June).
3. Pray for me as I start to say goodbye to friends and family. Right now, it's what I'm the most worried about, but it was helped by the fact that I learned today that I may be coming back for a weekend in September because of visa renewal requirements...but that means I need to find more plane tickets (hence #1).

Support update

Now that graduation is over, I have time to work on things some more. In case you were wondering how the whole support/commitment form thing works, I'll let you know. My letter says that you can mail in the commitment form directly to WGO. Every 2 weeks, they send me copies of the forms that come in and at the end of the month, they send me a printout of what online donations were made as well as the total amount that I have so far. I keep my own database as well that tells me the total amount I have raised/pledged, the percent of the total, and the amount I still need. The last update I received from WGO was on May 8th. After adding those commitment forms to my database, I have a total of $7350 which is 43.75% of the total needed. God has provided in a great way so far, but more is still needed. I still need about $9450. Please prayerfully consider partnering with me in sharing God's love with these kids! Thanks so much to those of you who already have! You are such a blessing and encouragement!

I will try to let y'all know how everything is going every couple of weeks when I receive the commitment forms from WGO.

Also, if you live in the DFW area and would like to save a stamp. I'd be glad to stop by and pick up your check and commitment form and mail them in for you...or if I see you at church you can give it to me then, too.

Please continue to pray for me as I'm making preparations for my trip! There is a lot to get figured out and about 10 weeks left before I need to leave.

Thanks and God bless!

Encouragement

It's been about 2 weeks since I sent out my letters. It's been very encouraging to see how God is already providing. It has been neat to see how people are responding to my trip. It seems like the more people I tell about it, the more excited they are for me and anxious to help in any way possible.

Just a couple of examples: I just finished student teaching. The teacher I worked with is about to marry a man that is fluent in Spanish. When I left, she gave me a little notebook full of important phrases that I should know in Spanish before I go. Also, my cousin has a friend that has been to Honduras before. The friend's husband is actually from Tegucigalpa I think. They are letting me go to their house so they can tell me all about Honduras...a little about the country and what to expect.

Also, the more I tell people about going, the more excited I get about everything. It's starting to hit me that I really am going in a couple of months, and this isn't just something that I'm talking about doing. I really am!!

I would appreciate prayer for this transition time: that I would trust God to continue to provide, for courage and strength as I start saying goodbye to people here, and that God would be honored in all that I do both here in pereparation to leave, and while I am down there.

Thanks!

Support Letter

This is the letter I'm sending out to some friends and family. Please let me know if you would like a photo prayer card and/or a commitment form.

"Dear Family and Friends,

I hope this letter finds you doing well. I wanted to write to tell you a little about what’s been going on in my life and to give you a chance to take part in what God is doing in the upcoming year.

I am graduating from Texas Christian University (TCU) in May with a degree in Early Childhood Education. Over the past 6 or 7 months, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do after I graduate. I was thinking that I felt like God was leading me to teach in Central America, but didn’t know exactly where or in what kind of school. I looked into several schools, local and international, but nothing really seemed quite right. Over my Christmas break, I went to a missions conference in St. Louis called Urbana. At the conference, hundreds of missions agencies had exhibits about their ministries. While there, God answered my prayers by leading me to World Gospel Outreach (WGO). I will be leaving at the end of July to teach for 1 year at Ebenezer Academy, a Bilingual Christian School at an orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras with WGO.


World Gospel Outreach is founded on the biblical mandates of caring for the widows, orphans, and poor. Medical and Construction mission teams go into Tegucigalpa to serve the widows and poor. Rancho Ebenezer is a ranch for Honduran children who have been abandoned by their families. At Rancho Ebenezer, missionary couples raise 6 or 7 Honduran children as their own, giving them a loving, Christian, family atmosphere that they otherwise would not have had. I will be teaching at Ebenezer Academy which is located on the ranch. The school has an enrollment of about 40 students K-12 and is for the Honduran children who are being raised by these families as well as a few missionary children whose parents are serving with WGO. I will be teaching a class of three to six 3rd and 4th graders an American, spiritually-based curriculum in English. I’m very excited about this opportunity and anxious to see what God will do in the upcoming year! I pray that God would shine through me to these kids that come from some rough backgrounds, and that I would have many opportunities to share the unfailing love, hope and joy that can only be found in Him!
In order to go and serve the people of Honduras, I need your help!
I need people to commit to pray for me and the people of Honduras. I have included a card with my photo and prayer requests.

I also need your financial help! Would you please prayerfully consider supporting me financially? I need to raise about $1400/month, which is a total of about $16,800. I have enclosed a reply form that lists several options of payment.

On the enclosed reply form, please indicate in what way you would like to help. It also includes specific instructions on how and where to send your contributions if you choose to support me financially.

If you have any questions or would like more information, feel free to contact me! I would love to talk to you!!

Thanks for your prayers and support!
Hannah Dakel
Hannah.dakel@gmail.com

To find out more about WGO, or to make your donation online, look at the website: http://www.wgoreach.org/"