“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9

According to our originally planned course, we were supposed to travel all over the Southwest during the months of April-August in order to recruit hosts for Hosts Israelis and share the Gospel with Israeli travelers. In March God connected us with awesome hosts and brought us to a paradise location with the perfect setup for our trailer and family needs, near friends and coworkers, where we planned to spend about a month to move into our new trailer and make preparations for the second leg of our trip. But the Lord established our steps (and our wheels) to remain over five months in Southern California to complete an enormous amount of work on Host Israelis and Planet Zula tech, that we didn’t know would need to be done when we started our trip. 

It has been challenging and stretching as we wait on the Lord’s timing (even though we are in a paradise location), because life was not working out according to our plans. But everything God has done and provided for us during this time has been a huge encouragement and testimony to His faithful provision and His perfect timing.

During the time that we were in California, God surprised us with our next great adventure: baby #2 – due to arrive in February! The tech work I had to get done gave us reason to stay in California as Carissa got through the rough first trimester season of nausea and exhaustion, which would have made travel miserable. 

On July 15th, we finished work on the Host Israelis web app and launched our focus group to test the entire host system and give us feedback. Just as we launched the focus group and Carissa was nearing the end of the first trimester, God gave us an incredible connection with believers who live inside the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park! They generously offered to host us on their property with hookups for our trailer, and said they regularly meet Israelis and Jewish people! Since the Grand Canyon was one of the next planned stops on our trip, this connection was like a green light from God to move on from California.

Please pray for the health and safety of Carissa and our new baby, safe travels as we head back East, and God’s provision for more great connections along the way.

As always, thank you for partnering with us through prayer on this crazy adventure for God’s Kingdom.

Love, 

BJ, Carissa, and Ari