Chapter 1

We are excited to share with you about our upcoming trip to Europe! God has given us a unique opportunity to return to a place very dear to our hearts, and we look forward to gaining a more clear understanding of our future. This is more than a vacation to visit with friends and former co-laborers; we are embarking on a “vision trip” to seek the Lord and His plans for our involvement in His work in that part of the world.

Most of you already know that we met in 2002 in Prague, Czech Republic. Jess lived there and ministered to the Deaf of that city. At the same time, Rob was living in Bucharest, Romania and working in the Roma (Gypsy) community. We spent time together- as friends- on several different occasions during our two-year terms, both clueless that God was going to join our lives. We are anxious to return now as a married couple and share our experiences with a new perspective.

The main goal of this trip is to develop the foundation of a small-business ministry among the Roma people. The Lord has been growing within us the desire to help Roma pastors become self-supporting through small-business initiatives (and therefore no longer relying on funds from Western churches and ministries). The eventual goal is to help these pastors establish a culturally relevant business and teach them the principles to grow their business to profitability in a way that honors the Lord, provides a witness in their community, and sustains the needs of their family and ministry. After this trip, we’ll be able to communicate in more detail the full scope of this small-business initiative and the direction God is leading it.

We are grateful for your prayers, especially related to these specific requests:
- Pray for clarity of vision for the overall initiative
- Pray for our meetings with Roma pastors, that we will be able to clearly communicate this initiative with them in a way that will allow them to share the vision
- Pray for our meetings with missionaries who will be working in partnership with us and the Roma pastors
- Pray for our time that we’ll spend catching up with and encouraging our former missionary colleagues
- Pray for smooth travel- there is a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time!
- Pray for physical strength and good health
- Pray that we will be sensitive to the Lord’s leading

March 10-11 Travel to Prague
March 11-13 Prague, CZ
March 14-16 Brno, CZ- Meeting with Roma Strategy Coordinator
March 16-17 Bucharest, RO- Meeting with Roma pastors
March 18-19 Braila, RO- Meeting with Team Romany & visiting Roma villages
March 20-21 Bucharest, RO
March 22 Return to Prague
March 23 Travel to Paris
March 24 Return to Nashville

We’ll be posting updates here as much as we can throughout the trip- please keep up with us as we go! We are excited to see what God has in store for us, and will be anxious to share with you. Thanks so much for praying with us as we begin this journey.