Spring time has come and getting ready to leave. The flowers are almost in full bloom. Those two statements can’t help but remind us of our three young ladies! They have grown tired of my (Alan) attempt of Tevye’s song “Sunrise, Sunset” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Whitney especially likes the line from his wife that goes, “I don’t remember growing older.., when did they?” (If you haven’t heard the song, you can find it on YouTube!)
These past few months we have become more aware of their needs to prepare for the time that they will leave for college; Amber is only a year away, Sierra is entering high school and Nadia is just a couple years behind! God has been working in our hearts to make a difficult decision: to allow Amber and Sierra to attend a boarding school for other M.K.’s (missionary kids) for the remainder of their high school years. They want this too, mostly because they need to be around other teens that they can relate to and to be in a stronger educational environment to prepare them for college.
After researching out our options, we believe that the best boarding school would be Dakar Academy in Dakar, Senegal. It is closer than the US, half the price of the other options here in Europe and partly owned by our mission organization (UWM). Since our mission has families there, it provides support for them (and us!) in time of need.
This is something we never planned on doing, actually something we promised to ourselves we would never do! One more opportunity in life to relearn the lesson “never say never!” As a result, we have never raised funds for educational needs. However, we have such a peace about this, believing beyond any doubt that this is what God wants for these girls to blossom into the young women He wants them to be.
We intend to raise the needed monthly increase to pay for the following years, but for this year we need to rely on one-time gifts. The school costs for both girls this upcoming year are $14,000. We agree that we should go as a family to take them, which will cost us $5,000 for the five round-trip tickets (Amber and Sierra using their return ticket to come home for Christmas). We hoped to use saved up miles, but there were no dates available. We believe we should be able to use them to purchase future tickets for their travel, returning back after Christmas and then coming back to Greece for the summer.
If you want to help financially, please contact us at awbrown5@yahoo.com or use the response card that will be enclosed with this letter when it arrives by post. Thank you!
