Summer Days Part 2

Bill just got back from a visit to the Rez and it was a great time of fellowship, worship and work with the SRM team. He was blessed to be there for the Back to School BBQ at the Long House where they had about 175 for dinner, ice cream, crafts with kids and worship! Multiple trips had to be made to pick up all the kids who were so excited to come back after a four week break they would come running down the street to meet the arriving vans and bus. There were many new folks from the community there that now know about the regular Tuesday night Bible study and were invited back. Several of the youth and adults from the community came early to help prepare by setting up for dinner and grilling. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and relationship building with the community. Continue praying for the team as there is still plenty of work to be done in the fall and winter months with a lot less hands to help. You can continue to pray for the remainder of our support to come in so we can be there to help soon. We are currently at 51% of our monthly/annual needs. Thanks again to all of you who have been praying and giving so faithfully!

Some photos from summer!

Summer Days

The summer has come and gone and lots of great things are happening in the Yarbrough world as we prepare for Yakama. We have been meeting with friends and family as the summer has progressed and continue to as we gain more and more supporters. Our percentage is around 45% at this time as our life in Birmingham continues to change. On July 31st we had a great work day at our home with our church family from Oak Mountain Presbyterian. We had anywhere from 40-50 people show up and do work in our yard as well as painting a couple of rooms, tear out carpet and stage it for selling. Our home had a great make over in just one Saturday thanks to our precious church family.
Other changes for us, Bill just finished up his job this week at Five Star Lumber. He is now officially raising support full time and it is our hopes and prayers that we will be getting to Yakama soon. Bill is also taking a trip to Yakama this Saturday, Sept. 4 through Wed. Sept. 8th to meet with the team there and gather more information.
At this time we do feel a bit in limbo as we are homeschooling all of the girls this year and have not participated in soccer or ballet as in years gone by. It is a part of that breaking ties with this home to move to our new one that the Lord is preparing daily for us in his timing.
We want to thank each one of you that have supported us over this past year and a half. The Lord has blessed us with friends and family that continually lift us up and encourage us on our journey. We look forward to the months to come as we draw closer and closer to the time of departure.
Prayers:
-Support continues to come in
-Children with their world changing daily as we prepare to go,
as well as the uncertainty of when we will leave
-Focus as Bill is raising support full time
-Our house to sell
-Patience and perseverance as we continue to prepare
Psalm 16:11
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

We have had just a wonderful summer getting the opportunity to share our call and vision with so many. The beginning of June started off with our vacation bible school at our home church, Oak Mountain Presbyterian were we were the mission focus this year. We had somewhere between 400-450 children, lots of helpers and great opportunity to share about Yakama and our call to the mission field. The kids responded immediately as they asked what they could do, well they went out and did it. We saw some out in the community, multiple lemonade stands, diet coke and cookie stands, kids bringing in their banks and asking to take money out of savings for the mission project. We doubled our goal for the week and praise God for those great big hearts in all those children desiring to foreward the gospel in Yakama, Washington.
We also had an opportunity to visit with my parents home church is Springville, Al. June 9th we shared at The Church at Bradford Road. The congregation was very interested in where we were going and in being able to bring a team out sometime to work. They also took up a special gift for us that night. It was a great night getting the opportunity to share our vision with fellow believers and possibly to have them send a short term team out to Yakama.
What is going on with the Yarbrough's since? Bill is working part time as of the last 2-3 weeks and we are able to focus more on our support raising. The Lord has been preparing our hearts for our mission now it is time to prepare our home. We are cleaning out our home and preparing in the next month to have it on the market.
Thank you all for your prayers and your support. I may have put this before but I love this verse as we prepare to go. 1 Thes. 5:24 He who has called you is faithful, he will surely do it. Tina

We are going to do a little back tracking before moving foreward with our updates. Support raising has been an adventure that is daily showing us how gracious God's children are to one another. We had the opportunity in March to share about our vision and mission in Yakama at a brunch hosted by our sunday school class at Oak Mountain Presbyterian. We also had a barbeque given in our honor with bible study friends and had a wonderful time of fellowship and a beautiful opportunity to share about Sacred Road, the ministry already in progress and our plans to join. Since then a few other things have occurred in our little family.

So many of you have prayed for our 11 year old Madison who had unexpected surgery on April 8 and we wanted to thank you all. We were truly blessed by messages, prayers and provisions. As you can imagine this was a difficult and at times scary circumstance but, it was amazing to see God us this in each of our lives to deepen our faith and trust in him. It was an incredible picture of community as we saw believers lifting her up all over the world and the local body of Christ reaching out to meet our felt needs. She is recovering better than we could have ever imagined and actually played in a soccer tournament on May 8th and 9th. Thanks again to all of you who helped us through this time.

As we enter into May we are finishing up with the girls in school and have a few things coming up. We are currently at 36% of our support and have some exciting opportunities coming up. June 7th-10th we are the missions focus for VBS at our home church Oak Mtn. Presbyterian. We are also speaking at The Church at Bradford Road in Springville, Al. on June 9th.

Next Saturday Oak Mountain's summer team will be heading to Yakama for a week to work on the rez. We are excited for them and can't wait to hear stories of our future home when they return. Please be in prayer for the teams safety as they travel and serve on the rez and for the hearts of the Yakama people to be impacted by the Gospel being presented. Also continue praying for the SRM staff as they transition into this very exciting and busy time of year for them.


Some of our current prayer requests:

• We would reach our 50% support goal for Bill to be able to cut back to part time work and focus more of his time on support raising
• For our children during this transitional time in our lives. That they would be excited about what God has planned for them.
  
• Preparing to sell our home
  

Since you're here, you probably are already aware of our family's plans to join the work the Lord is doing on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington through Sacred Road Ministries. Over the past several years the Lord has put this desire in our hearts and affirmed the call to join the Granberrys and the rest of the team as full-time staff. As we began to consider the possibility that God was calling us to Yakama we had some fears and concerns about taking our family to live on the rez. Through much prayer and listening to God's word we realized we must trust that he can and will take care of our family better there than we can here. Since stepping out in faith and laying these concerns at his feet he has continually and abundantly shown us how he is preparing the way.

As part of God's family we know that he has called us into community with the body of Christ and those of us that have experienced the blessings of this can understand how this time for us is bitter sweet. We have been very fortunate to already know and be close to some of our new community God has called us to and given us a longing to be with, an opportunity most missionaries do not get. We are also very blessed with a great community here and are becoming more and more aware of this as we see God's loving care for us through our family here. We are getting to know more and know better so many wonderful brothers and sisters here it is difficult to think of leaving. God is good though and we are excited to see what he has planned for us next. Please pray for us to "not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let" our "requests be made known to God."

Sacred Road