We are Coming to America and We're Pregnant!!!
 
After a year and half of waiting, Daniel's green card was finally approved! We are currently both in Vietnam but we will be traveling together to the States on March 9th. We are 5 months pregnant now and recently found out that we're going to have a baby girl this July!!! We are so excited about this next season of our lives, even though it's going to be full of big changes for us.
We are still figuring a lot of things out, but we'd like to let you know what our plan is so far. We estimate that we'll be in America for 6-9 months. One of our big goals for this time in the States is for Daniel to become a U.S. citizen, which means more paperwork and waiting for us, but having his U.S. citizenship will open up many doors and make traveling much easier for us in the future. We are also very happy that God worked out the timing for us to be able to give birth to our precious little girl in Minnesota where health care and birthing facilities are better. While we are in the States, we will both continue to serve YWAM Ho Chi Minh City as best we can. Daniel will continue to translate books, manage the base website, and answer emails. Cassandra will continue to prepare for the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program she's been planning and both of us will keep training and discipling the staff of all the training schools that will run this year.
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What have we been up to?
 
A couple days after I (Cassandra) arrived back in Vietnam, Daniel and I headed up to the mountains to lead a combined staff training for 2 bases who will be having Discipleship Training Schools this year. We spent the week teaching about discipleship and how to run a DTS, as well as meeting with the next school leaders to pray for them and help prepare them to lead these schools, as it will be the first time any of them lead a DTS.
Here in Ho Chi Minh City, we have a DTS starting this week with 9 students from Canada and Vietnam. Both Daniel and I have been working closely with the DTS staff to help prepare for this school and we are so excited about what God is going to do in the next 6 months with all of them! Daniel has also been hosting outreach teams coming to serve the city and our base.
As a base, this year has brought a lot of changes and difficulties. Our base leader was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the beginning of the year. Thankfully they caught it very early and were able to remove all the cancer, but he and his family had to quickly go back to Korea for treatment. In his absence, Daniel has temporarily taken over the responsibility of leading the base. Now that we are leaving for several months, and the base leaders are still unable to return, we have been working to form and raise up a team of leaders at the base to continue to manage and lead the base in this season. This may not be an ideal situation, but we believe that God is working to bring the base into a new level of community and leadership. We will continue to work with this team even as we go back to the US to help mentor and advise them.
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Fundraising
As both of us look back on the years we've served in YWAM (14 years for Cassandra and 11 years for Daniel), we are amazed at God's faithfulness and provision in our lives. We have seen God come through for us in every season and we thank all of you who have been a part of that provision over the years. However, now as we look to the future as a couple and soon to be parents, the need to raise more support is becoming increasingly necessary. The last 2 years we have relied heavily on one-time donations, our savings, and some part-time work, but as we budget for the future, we need to raise $800 more per month.. We would like to invite you to pray about how you can help us reach this goal - whether that's by joining our support team, increasing your support, giving a one-time donation, committing to pray for us regularly or even inviting us to come speak in your church or small group about what we do here in Vietnam.
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Prayer Requests
1. For our travel back to the US (for a sick-free trip for Cassandra and no problems going through immigration for Daniel)
2. For our baby girl to grow healthy and strong
3. That we will be able to raise the extra monthly support that we need to be able to continue in missions
4. For our base leader to recover quickly
5. For the base here and all the staff and students
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Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and supporting us through the years, and through this season of waiting. We are very excited to be coming to America and getting to spend time with you. Daniel is especially looking forward to meeting many of you for the first time. Your prayers and support mean so much to us. Please let us know how you are doing, how we can be praying for you, and when you're free for dinner or coffee!
Blessings,
Daniel & Cassandra
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