Learning New Things

ok, friends, here goes nothing...i have never written a blog or anything of the sort, so I'll see how this goes...
I decided to start a blog to, mainly, keep everyone "in the loop" about our journey to China (with a few 'extras' thrown in every now and again).
For those of you that dont know about God's plans for us, here is a little recap of the past couple years (it will be short!)

• we had our first 'taste' of China in October 2009...we fell in love with the country and the people
• we felt, almost immediately, that God wanted us in China 
• over the following few months, we investigated some options for a work visa in China...they all bombed...
• I (Darc) returned to China in January 2011 where I volunteered with an orphange
• it clicked! China + Orphanage = The Inkpens :)
• we investigated more options and were put in contact with International China Concern (ICC)

It is now October 2011...2 years after we felt God calling us to China. We have completed the application packages, had a couple of interviews with ICC, and are now going to be completing a personality/psychological 'test'. Once this 'test' is complete we will find out if we are accepted by ICC for long term missions work in their orphanage.The city we will be working in is Changsha, Hunan, China.


I will be home schooling all the kids. Brendin will be in grade 8, Jacquelyn in grade 6 and the twins will just do pre-school things. We have been given the advice that perhaps the kids take some time off from intense school work to get involved with the community and to learn the language. Neither Brendin nor Jacquelyn want to take time off school so I will have to come up with a happy medium for schooling and learning to live in China.


So, this is where we stand: both skype interviews went well and everyone is excited for us to come to ICC, we have been put on the internal email chain for ICC so we can become a part of the ICC family, we have the assessment packages and just need to complete them (& return them)


Please (continue to) pray for our family and that we would be, in fact, following where God is taking us. Also, please pray for protection over our family as we know Satan does not want us doing the work of God and he will do all he can to stop us. We have all felt out own attacks in the past few weeks/months and are expecting it to only get worse.


Thanks everyone for your support! Hopefully I can keep up with this blog and keep you up to date on our lives and how God is working in us all.