Now we want to invite you along with us on the next steps of our journey as we follow Jesus...
As we have been blessed, we have brought children from around the world into our home. This has blessed us even more! Many times we had to have faith that God would provide His help. He has always provided, and our faith and trust in Him has grown. God told Abraham that He was going to bless Abraham, and through that blessing he would bless the world. We have been blessed with so much! We have been adopted into God's family, and we are heirs with Jesus. We have all that Jesus has! As we have grown our family, we have also glimpsed into what it means to be a part of God's family!
As our hearts have grown in love for God, for people, and for other cultures, we have sensed God changing our plans for our lives. I had always thought I would be working in Homer, building my landscape business all my life. As the desires of my heart started changing, I wondered what the Lord might be calling us to. Several years ago, we as a family spent three months in the Philippines to see what the Lord might teach and show us.
In April of last year Dennis and Jeanie O'Keefe, missionaries from the Philippines, came up to visit their daughter, our pastor's wife. We had the pleasure of catching up with them, for we had met them first in the Philippines. A few weeks later after they returned to the Philippines they wrote, asking us if we would consider working with them. They have begun to pioneer several agricultural projects that would provide much needed nutrition and sustainable income for the people of the Palawan Islands. They need help implementing these projects and know that Steve has experience in the area of sustainable agriculture. We started checking into the possibility of joining them, and found that various obstacles made it a nearly impossible feat. We are learning that nothing is impossible for the God we serve!
In February the Vox Veritas mission board in the Philippines sent us an official invitation to work under Dennis and Jeanie O'Keefe and World Outreach Ministries has accepted us as missionary affiliates under their service agency. We will be interning under the O'Keefe's for two years helping to develop contour gardens, rubber tree production, and goat husbandry. Our goal is to arrive later this year.
We have alot of work to do to prepare for our departure, so we would like to ask you to pray for us! We desperately need your prayers more than anything! Pray also for the people with whom we will be working with on the Palawan islands. There are only a handful of believers amongst this unreached people group, and the desire of our hearts is that the entire island would come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Dennis and Jeanie have been planting seeds of the gospel with these people for many years and know that there is a direct association between the life-giving food we would be helping them grow and the life-giving food only Jesus provides. This field is ripe for the harvest and we can't wait to lend our hands to our Father's work!
If you would like to partner with us in prayer and receive regular updates, please contact us. We also would request that you prayerfully consider partnering with us financially. Please go to World Outreach for more information. The moneys we will receive from the rental of our home and the sale of our business has already provided a generous portion of the support we will need for these two years, but we still have two thousand dollars monthly left to raise. We feel humbled and honored to be called to this life-giving work, and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for the people of Palawan and for our family over the next two years. Again, thank you for your involvement in our lives. We so appreciate it!
Love in Christ,
Steven and Stacey Veldstra
Ann Marie, Ethan, Tyler, Kailee, Alyssum, Adams
