Brandon & Julianna Jones

I just read a blog post by someone that I thought I should share with you. Mike Arndt, one of the missionaries with All Nations, posted about a really exciting movement of people coming to know Jesus in Masi (the township we worked in in May). In Mike's story, he compares the move of God to a vein of gold. It's something we've been doing in our community here — recognizing that people are God's treasure and he wants to lead us to find his treasure, hearts ready to fall in love with him. Check out what's going on in an area we'll be working in.

We bought our plane tickets this week! That's right, it's official. We're flying to Cape Town February 4th, arriving on the 5th. It was a big step buying our plane tickets, but what actually felt more final was making the Facebook event for our "estate sale," where we'll be selling or giving away most of our stuff. Somehow as the material possessions in my life start to leave I'm becoming less and less attached to my life here in Norman. I've found it's really hard sometimes to decide to part with certain items. Those tea cups are so cute! I know I haven't used them once during the 10 months that I've had them, but how can I part with them? Well, I guess it's simple: I remind myself that they are just stuff (my mom actually ended up taking those tea cups, because they are actually very darling).
The state of disarray we're living in at the moment (if you see something in this pic you like, it's probably available)
Brandon and I are definitely entering a transition time. Our apartment is beginning to look only half lived in, and in only a few weeks we'll move out and into our dear friends the LeBeaus' house for our final time in Norman. Every time I've hung out with people that I love here in Norman of late I've gotten a bittersweet, sad feeling about leaving them. Speaking of hanging out with people I love, I was so very very blessed last weekend when my dear friends (my bridesmaids minus my sisters) took me to Dallas for a night of fun girl time. They actually planned ahead and made me my very own "Book of Remembrance" with special stories and encouraging words about me and our friendship. It was so sweet! I have the best friends ever! Thanks, Trisha, Laura and Kelly! Back to transition time, I guess the point of this post was just to show you a glimpse of what's going on in Brandon and I's life. We're taking steps and getting closer to the destiny God's spoken into our hearts for so long. It's very exciting, but not without a touch of sadness in saying goodbye to people we love here. (Brandon probably wouldn't describe it as such, however. I'm definitely the sentimental one of the couple.) We are very excited about our new life in Cape Town too. I'm really looking forward to learning as much as possible from Floyd McClung and the other leaders during CPX. Floyd visited Norman Community Church last weekend for a brief time and it only made me more and more excited to do the things God's placed on my heart: know Jesus more and make disciples! Providentially, my mom happened to be driving through Norman just that one night Floyd was here and got to meet him in person. Well, this was kind of a newsy, haphazard catch-up post, but I hope it was informative. I would love to get any advice from those of you out there who have moved to another country (whether for missions or school or whatever) about how to transition well. Leave a comment! — Julianna

Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday that we decided we were going to move to Cape Town in February 2010. It seemed forever away at that point, but now it's only three months away. What that means is that we're getting close to the deadline for a lot of the things I personally have been putting off and not wanting to do. Namely: sorting through our two-bedroom-apartment worth of stuff and getting rid of, packing or storing it. That brings me to the point of this post: Anybody want to buy our stuff? We're planning to move out of our apartment in about a month and will be getting rid of stuff throughout this month. Our goal is to sell and give away all our excess to those we know so we won't have to have a dreaded garage sale. So if you need any home items or like my style and want to go through my clothes or shoes, get in touch! Julianna