{"id":5725,"date":"2014-08-22T15:51:13","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T15:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/?p=5725"},"modified":"2014-08-22T16:27:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T16:27:25","slug":"we-have-a-new-adventure-in-africa-starting-next-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/we-have-a-new-adventure-in-africa-starting-next-month\/","title":{"rendered":"We have a new adventure in Africa starting next month!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Find out how you can help…<\/p>\n

Here is our latest news<\/a>\u00a0in full colour and images! Please contact us<\/a> to help us in our work. For more about our projects<\/a> read this. Or to\u00a0make a donation<\/a> toward our work. Thanks for your prayer and interest! As always we are so grateful to be able to live the crazy lives we lead…<\/p>\n

For the full text of our newsletter without all the images, read below…<\/p>\n

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Dear friends<\/span><\/div>\n
We try to write to keep you up to speed with our lives. If you would like daily images and snippets we have started daily stories and images to give you a peek of\u00a0our lives and\u00a0keep you up to date, see pics of us as a family, some views from our travels\u00a0as well as\u00a0how quickly our kids are growing, then please friend us on Facebook or visit\u00a0www.aleckcartwright.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and join our mailing list.<\/span><\/div>\n

Here is our latest news\u00a0and we have a brand new mission trip on the horizon. It’s been over a year since we returned from our last project in Brazil. In the last 5 years we have started training in India, Nigeria and Thailand. The truth is that we don\u2019t write these letters as often as we should and if we opened up this letter by pretending this is just the latest in a long chain of correspondence we\u2019ve kept up over these many years, that would feel as fake as when people run out of things to say… and start making small talk about the weather. But we are so excited about this trip for many reasons, and the truth is we need you!<\/span><\/p>\n

If we were you, we would probably be thinking, \u201cAleck and Donna-Rae are going on another mission trip?\u201d That\u2019s a completely fair thought. We have been in missions for almost 20 years together so if you are some of our oldest friends, you are probably used to this. We’re not sure if there is ever a \u201cgood time\u201d to go on a mission trip. We had hoped to leave 6 months ago for Africa as you know, but for some reason we did not get the visas, so we reapplied for just 3 months and got our passports back yesterday! We could probably come up with a whole list of reasons why we shouldn\u2019t go, shouldn’t take our kids out of their local school or risk it all again, but we keep coming back to the one reason we should \u2013 God loves people and the best way to show it is to serve. Here at home and wherever else God sees fit to send us.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been trying to live that in the life we have – in all its facets – in small ways at home, abroad, in school, at church and at work. I mean it\u2019s easy to pray for far off places and far off people, but loving who you live and work with is a challenge for each one of us. We\u2019ve been trying to see our lives as lifestyle missionaries in all of its facets and not just in each short trip we take. And it\u2019s been cool to see the way God has used this approach to everything from the way we serve people to the way we treat people we don’t even know in the street. But now, it\u2019s again time, to take the things we\u2019ve learned to another longitude and latitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, we are going to Cape Town, South Africa for three months to run a School of Design. Aleck became a missionary after leaving Zimbabwe in 1996 in this same city so in a way it is completing a circle as we go back there. We will be leaving mid September, (yes, next month!) and will return to our home here in Northern Ireland in December.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Going isn\u2019t a hard decision. When it comes down to it, Jesus laid out a pretty simple religion for us, didn\u2019t He? Love God, love others, and love ourselves. No, our deciding to go is easy. Praying and preparing mentally and as a family for it however, is a real challenge. We have been in this same spot countless times, never knowing how we will manage it, but trusting that God will provide as He always has. In the last two decades we have seen Him do it miraculously again and again, we have also seen Him do it through those who sacrifice and give so selflessly again and again each month.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So we face this need again, but our trust is in God and we look forward to reporting back how He has done it yet again and made a way where there seemed to be none! Once before, about 10 years ago, we sent a similar letter to a friend in America who was not home at the time her mother received it. Her mother opened the letter and read it and decided to buy our tickets to America for one of our schools. God works in mysterious ways, but He does it through ordinary people who happen to have huge hearts. So if you are not really interested in this, pass it on to your mum or your friends (that\u2019s just a joke ; )<\/span><\/div>\n
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We can’t all be missionaries in foreign lands, some of you have told me you would rather not be, but we are writing to you because we know that you are pleased that we are doing it. We want to be faithful to God and to you and honour your giving with our hard work. Really we are all called to be lifestyle missionaries right where we live, so we are just as proud to know you and be inspired by your lives and choices and we hope to go as an extension of our local body of Christ.<\/span><\/div>\n
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To be honest with you, we don\u2019t have the \u00a33000 we still need right now. If we waited for the money to come before we acted we would never do anything, never mind\u00a0 the next thing God calls us to do, so we are going to step out in faith and trust Him. So, instead of selling everything we own a couple of times, we\u00a0decided to send an update to people we don\u2019t usually write to and ask for something we don\u2019t usually ask for, money. We\u2019d love if you could financially support us on this mission trip. A little, a lot – any amount would be great. And if you want to know more about the trip, please see\u00a0\u201cProjects\u201d at\u00a0www.aleckcartwright.com<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The tickets are about \u00a31800 for Cape Town. Aleck’s ticket for Singapore and accommodation for his meetings in a weeks time (a requirement of his position as Representative for the College of Communication) comes to about \u00a3800. Our greatest need is for monthly supporters as we have lost some of our long-term support since January on a monthly basis. No-one in our organisation earns a salary, we have to raise all of our own monthly family expenses as well as ministry costs. So if you believe in us, appreciate us or want to contribute to these expenses we would be so blessed. If we know we have committed monthly supporters it helps us to steward and budget well.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Our goal in going to South Africa is to serve in Media Village, South Africa, a ministry of Youth With A Mission International (the charity we work for\u00a0www.ywam.org<\/span><\/a><\/span>). The schools we run are part of University of the Nations (www.UofN.edu<\/span><\/a><\/span>) which offers university-level training for missionaries from every nation in the world. Media Village is an incredible and strategic partner as they have won many National and International Film awards both inside and outside of South Africa. For the first time, as we go there, they will be able to offer Design training too. This is exciting, as the schools will continue to run in the future even after we leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have run similar schools for the College of Communication in Brazil, India, Thailand and Nigeria where the training continues to serve Missionaries every year. The goal is not to run a single school once, but to multiply it for the future so that the training continues in partnership with local missionaries who will lead the schools each year to offer training that is practical and serves locally to be “Jesus with Skin” on to those in need. To do this it means that we travel as a family from 3 to 6 months at a time, homeschooling our kids while on the field in Asia, South America or Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n

One other thing that would really mean a lot right now is prayer. If you could pray about this particular trip, the wisdom from God for us to handle obstacles with grace and for Him to provide as He has always done over the last 18 years for us as a family in missions, that would be great. As much as God loves missions, we know there has been and will continue to be opposition to break us down,give up or turn back. There will be lots of big and small things that pop up and entangle themselves around our ankles as we prepare to go to love and to serve in South Africa.\u00a0We have faced them the last few months too, but now we are ready\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

And knowing that you are praying would mean a lot to us, if you would like to share anything God says, please share it with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please Pray for:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pray for our flights, we will be flying on standby tickets that a friend and supporter has offered us as he works for South African Airways. So, they are much cheaper, the price we are looking at for our family of four is \u00a31375 to Cape Town return (about half the price of the usual tickets). We will still need to buy our Easy Jet tickets over to England on top of this amount.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. \u00a0The Finances to cover Aleck’s Leadership meetings in Singapore next week, from the 26th of August to 6th of September. Including flights and accommodation this amounts to \u00a3800. Aleck\u2019s work is to oversee all Communication Schools worldwide for the University of the Nations. These schools train Missionaries and Communicators in skills like photography, media, web design, motion graphics, print and writing as well as journalism and Film making.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. For health and peace as we prepare as a family for South Africa and all that it entails to move a family across a continent for 3 months. For our kids to adapt well and enjoy the privilege of travel and seeing the world as God sees it.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Support us in prayer and encouragement as we go, we will miss you while we are away and look forward to being back.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. God has been so faithful over the last 5 years as we have travelled the world to Brazil, Nigeria, India and Thailand as a family to live for many months at a time (about half of these five years we have lived and worked in the developing world. We are also grateful for shorter trips Aleck has done to Zanskar, Korea, England and France to teach and serve internationally.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. We now have a brilliant church, with pastors and friends who are supportive and pray for us as well as many old and new friends in Northern Ireland and all over the world who serve God so faithfully. Thank you Grace Generation Church for praying for us and encouraging us.<\/span>If you would like to support us financially as a family we can give you our paypal details, Stewardship Services account in the UK or our US Bank account details as well. If you go to our website at\u00a0aleckcartwright.com<\/span><\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0 and hit the donate button.<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Thank you so much for your friendship and support and for standing with us in prayer. You are a blessing to us. May God richly bless you in all you do. And may you know His peace in your life.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And finally, as much as we would love for you to think we have it all together, the truth is that often we are scared witless, have a sleepless night here and there and with each year seem to have to trust God for greater amounts of travel, food,\u00a0clothing, rent and the monthly finances to cover it all. With seemingly smaller and smaller pockets and faith the size of a mustard seed (sometimes we lose the seed altogether!) we are as ever eager to step out and walk when it looks like all is sinking once again!\u00a0We know you may not be in a position to contribute materially but we would deeply appreciate your encouragement and prayer. Sometimes this kind of care is the biggest confirmation that we are exactly where God has called us to be!<\/span><\/p>\n

    Aleck leaves for Singapore on Tuesday morning and will be away for 10 days for Leadership meetings. Then we will leave around the 15th of September for England and afar a few days of international travel to Johannesburg, we will start work in Cape Town on the 23rd of September. The students are waiting for us eager to learn about God, Creativity and how to design for print, web and Video.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Thanks for reading this rambling letter,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Sincerely,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Aleck, Donna-Rae, Mya & Micah Cartwright<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Find out how you can help… Here is our latest news\u00a0in full colour and images! Please contact us to help us in our work. For more about our projects read this. Or to\u00a0make a donation toward our work. Thanks for your prayer and interest! As always we are so grateful to be able to live […] Continue Reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5725"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5733,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions\/5733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aleckcartwright.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}