Stuffing Our Lives into 8 Pieces of Luggage

After speaking with different people and researching options, it looks like we're leaning toward taking whatever we can on the plane (2 pieces for each of us), and mailing whatever we can't fit. We just don't have enough stuff to ship, but we have more stuff than we'd like to just take on the plane.

After another round of purging, we're now testing out our luggage and weight limits (50 lbs/bag). David found some great rolling duffel bags at Costco, so I've been madly purging, selling, packing, and weighing these last 2 days to get an idea of what we can and can't take.

Here are most of the kids' toys packed up in ziploc bags:

Here's the bag zipped up:

Unfortunately, it weighed 55 pounds, so we'll have to make some adjustments. Here are the boys' clothes for the next year or so: 

Just under 50 pounds. Yay!

Anyways, all this is giving us a good idea of how much we can take and what we need to get rid of.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21

What Is Human Trafficking? What Does ZOE Children's Homes Do?

To learn more about human trafficking and ZOE Children's Homes, here are informational pages from their website:

Human Trafficking Statistics

What ZOE Children's Homes Does

Story of Rescued Child

Articles on Human Trafficking

Our First Newsletter

You can click on the images to zoom in.

zoe Necklace/Keychain by oliandme.com

A dear friend, creator of oliandme.com (a fine jewelry company), made and donated these cute brass "zoe" charms and turned them into keychains and necklaces ("zoe" is greek for "life" and also happens to be the name of the organization we are working with in Chiang Mai, Thailand). The charms are 0.75 cm in diameter, and the necklace hangs on a navy blue cord, sealed at the end.

For a donation of $10, as a "thankyou," we'll mail you your choice of a necklace or keychain as we raise the remaining portion of funds needed for zoechildren.org. 100% of the proceeds will go to ZOE.

If you're interested, email me at yufamilythailand@gmail.com the quantity of necklaces/keychains you want and your mailing address. You can go to zoechildren.org/donate to donate $10 (or more if desired), and you can select "Yu Family" from the drop-down menu. If you already donated, your necklace/keychain will be coming in the mail. Thank you!!!

Almost There!

We've booked our flight! We're leaving Saturday, Sept. 24, at 11:20pm. There were two different flights to choose from. We tried to decide which might be better for Eli, but soon realized that it'll be bad either way. =P I think out of all things to consider right now, we're most concerned about Eli on that long flight to Thailand, not so much for us, but for everyone else on that flight. Hopefully he'll sleep for a lot of it. We'll see...

As most of you know, this is a long time coming for our family. Ever since David and I met and got married, we've been desiring to serve God on the missions field, to minister in areas where they have little or no access to Christianity, churches, and spiritual resources. We've been praying, scouting, and waiting for the right time and opportunity. We've always been open to go anywhere. A big factor in deciding where to go has been considering which opportunity would be a good fit for our local church body, Immanuel Bible Church (ibcbible.org), as they had committed to being our sending church.

Back in 2005, we got rid of most of our possessions to get ready to move abroad, but the opportunity fell through, and we decided to try to start a family as we regrouped and figured out our next step. We were quickly blessed with Ian, and then Eli. For the last 9 years of our marriage, we've been so blessed to serve God through IBC in our local community, work on our marriage, and raise our young children.

Through IBC's connections with Children's Hunger Fund (chfus.org), we were able to learn about zoechildren.org, an amazing organization that rescues children in Thailand from child trafficking. We took a scouting trip last November 2010 and were overwhelmed and excited to learn about what ZOE does. After much prayer and consideration, our elders approved our participation with ZOE.

At this point, we're waiting to receive Ian's renewed passport, then we'll apply for our VISAs. We're also currently trying to determine whether we should ship our belongings or just get rid of most of them and carry-on whatever we can.

David will be leading IBC's short-term missions trip to Japan through most of August, so we're spending time with friends and family before we leave.

We're so thankful for all the love and support we have through family, church, and friends. We're so excited to finally serve God cross-culturally, and work with such a great organization. Please pray for all the remaining logistics to work out smoothly. We praise God for this season of our lives!