One Week Until Departure!

Dear Family and Friends,

"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!" Psalm 118:27

As we were about to begin writing this month's prayer newsletter, we sat staring at a blank computer screen for a few seconds.  Then I turned to Crick and asked, "Where do we even begin?"  The last two years have been a wild ride, and it's all led up to this point - departure!  So where do we begin?  We begin by giving all the glory to God our Father!  This is the day HE has made, and we WILL rejoice and be glad in it!  Thank you, God, for guiding our path to Estonia, challenging us every day, and bringing us a wonderful partnership team of family and friends!  With 21 churches and 87 individuals partnering with us financially and literally countless partnering with us in prayer, we have an incredible support team behind us!  We are now one week from boarding the plane to move to Estonia.  We are so excited to move into this next phase of ministry, in Estonia!

We clearly have a lot of exciting things going on right now, and the next few months will be no different.  We thought it would be easiest to create a "time line" below of the coming days and weeks, so you can follow and be a part of our journey of transitioning to life in Estonia.

• Sunday, January 22 - We will be commissioned as missionaries by our home church, Faith Mountain.  An open house will follow the service, and everyone is invited!
• Thursday, January 26 - Depart from Denver at 4:45pm.  Please pray for a safe journey with no flight complications, and pray for Faith, as this will be her first overseas flight.
• Friday, January 27 - Arrive in Tallinn, Estonia at 4:50pm, followed by a 2 1/2 hour car ride to Tartu, our new home!  We will be staying with a host family until we find an apartment to rent.  Praise God for this family and their willingness to house us and help us get settled!
• Our first weeks in Estonia - We will be spending our first days finding an apartment, shopping for a vehicle, opening cell phone accounts and a bank account, and getting to know our new surroundings.  Within the first month, we will be applying for our temporary residency permits and hiring a language tutor to begin learning Estonian.  Please pray for our health and flexibility as well as God's leading in accomplishing these tasks.
• February 3-5 - Kolgata Church's youth winter camp - Please be in prayer for the approximately 80 campers attending this camp and for Crick, as he prepares to give his first gospel message as a full-time missionary in Estonia.

We will continue to keep you updated on our journey in the coming weeks.  Once we have an address and phone number in Estonia, we will surely send you our new contact information. We also want you to know we will now be sending a quarterly newsletter, rather than monthly, in order to help us prepare for full-time language training and cultural acquisition. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us via email, Facebook, or Skype (our Skype username is christophermindy.porier). We would love to hear from you, and please let us know how we can pray for you!

Thank you for your love.
Thank you for your prayers.
Thank you for your support.
To God be ALL the glory!
We love you and we look forward to continuing on this journey with you!

Blessings,
Crick, Mindy, and Faith :)