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Short (maybe not so short) update on our next steps

It's amazing to think that we are only 6 months away from leaving Vienna to return to California. Recently I have been looking back at blog posts from the beginning of our journey. It has been a very encouraging exercise in remembering how God has provided for us and how he has been involved in every step of our lives. Praise God for His faithfulness!

While there are still many things for us to do and decisions to be made, we are beginning to get a clearer picture of what the next year or so will look like. Next year will be a "Home Assignment" year. One where we are able to re-charge, spend time with family and supporters, and share the vision for the Kosovo ministry. I (Michael) will also be working on my MA in Leadership during this time. As it is, even though we are in the states, we will continue to trust God for our finances as provided through the faithful giving of our supporters. If you are currently a supporter we will let you know soon about our new sending agency and how to switch over your giving (especially if you are on auto debit or eft).

So...here's a tentative timeline...

- Our entire family will travel to Kosovo in April. We will be meeting with a variety of people, including ministry leaders, government leaders, the Director of the international school, and many more. We will use this time finalize some of the June camp details. We will also start to search out where we will eventually live and what a budget for living in Kosovo will look like.

- The camp in June is coming together nicely. In fact, the number of partner organizations and churches who are joining up with us is quite overwhelming and definite evidence to how God is ordaining all of this. For example;
Global Baseball - sending 3-6 coaches to run the clinic.
Baseball Without Borders - Donated 3 gear bags worth of equipment.
Purpose Driven Baseball - Very interested in long term relationship. They visited us in Vienna and are interested in setting up a second camp during the first week of July.
Christian Sports Medicine Alliance -  Very interested in a long term partnership. Planning on joining us for the June trip with the intention of seeing how they could be further involved. This is very exciting as it opens the door to a medical ministry to support the people of Kosovo.
Crossroads Fellowship, Odessa TX - This group will be visiting Vienna, and going on to Kosovo with the Williams in March. They have donated shirts and hats featuring the Kosovo Baseball Initiative logo, and are interested in long term partnership.
There are a few more organizations that we are still talking with about how we can potentially partner. This is a very exciting time for us as we continue to see how God is working.

- We are planning to return to California somewhere between the 5th and 7th of July...depending on ticket prices.

- We will be living with my parents in Garden Grove.

- We will spend much of July-December visiting with family and connecting with with friends and family around the Southern California area.

- At some point, most likely in spring of 2015, we are planning to do a support raising roadtrip...many of our new baseball ministry networks are located in the Southeast and East Coast so we will need to spend substantial travel time to in order to visit all these new places. We will also take this opportunity to visit some family and friends spread throughout the states. (If any of you reading this have access to a small RV that we would be able to borrow for a month or two...let me know please). Also, if you are somewhere in the states other than so cal and would like to let us crash at your place, let us know and we put you on our road trip itinerary!

- Depending on our support levels, and some other "preparedness" factors, we hope to move to Kosovo at some point in the summer of 2015 in order to have Justin begin his 10th grade at Prishtina High School.

We appreciate your prayers for all these things...we'd love to hear from you.

If you're interested in partnering with us with a financial gift, please send us a message...mdjohnstone@gmail.com.

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