Happy Easter!

This is a picture of our quad. We live on the left side.


1 1/2 to go! This week was great. Last Saturday we went to D.C. again. We had a great time. We even got to go up in the Washington Monument. We went to the National Zoo and saw the pandas and to the Air and Space museum. It was great.





We spent most of the week here with our Regional leadership. We learned a lot of things about the culture we will be going into and ministering too. We had fun being with our CESA team. Yesterday was our last day of shots. Leah and Micah did fantastic Emily not so much. But it's over and we won't have to get shots for a long time. Thank you for all of your prayers.





This week was an interesting warfare week. You all know from my last blog that the house sold last Thursday. What you don't know is that for some unknown reason the money from the house sell sat in limbo until Wednesday. When it was finally transferred into our account. At the same time the air conditioning on the van decided to break. We prayed a lot and the van was fixed for $130 and the money from the house finally made it. It is amazing how the enemy knows exactly what things will throw you off. But we praise the Lord for bringing us through it.





I know that I said this last week but I just want to thank all of you who sent cards, gifts, e-mails or called David and Leah on their birthdays. You really blessed them. They both had great birthdays.





Prayer Requests: please pray for us especially Thurs. - Sat. David and I will be going through some training that will be tough.





Pray that we can stay focused. It is hard to do when you only have a 1 1/2 left.





Pray for the sell of our van.





Pray for our niece Katy and my sister Kym who both have birthdays this week.





We pray that you have a wonderful Easter. Thank you for all of your prayers. Please let us know if there is anything that we can be praying for you about.

THE HOUSE IS SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never thought that it would feel this good to be homeless. The house sold yesterday at 1:00 p.m. What a blessing. Thank you so much for those who have prayed with us during this time.

We only have about 2 1/2 weeks to go. They will be intense weeks so keep praying. This week we learned about doctrines and spiritual warfare. Pretty interesting stuff. Jerry Rankin the President of the IMB is the spiritual warfare speaker. There are so many things that we have learned but one that really sticks out is that we need to die to self every day. If you drop the "h" in flesh and spell it backwards it spells self. We cannot live in the flesh.

Last night our regional leaders came to the ILC and the CESA team helped make an African meal. It was really good. At the end we had angel food cake with fruit (papaya, banana, mango, strawberries and pineapple). We celebrated all of the March birthdays. I think there were 5 of them. The food was so good. Emily ate most of it. Leah and Micah tried very small pieces but they weren't too excited by the menu.

This is a birthday weekend at the Delac's. David's birthday is today. We made cinnamon rolls for him this morning and the journeymen (girls) on our team decorated the quad. Tonight we have a babysitter and we are going to P.F. Changs for dinner. Yum! After that we are headed back to have an ice cream party at the quad. Thank you to all of you who sent cards. He really appreciated them. If you would like to send him a birthday e-mail his address is david_delac@yahoo.com Tomorrow we are headed back to D.C. just to see some of the sights we missed when we went a couple of weeks ago. Sunday we will celebrate Leah's birthday. She doesn't know about the cards and gifts people have sent. I have hidden those from her until Sunday. I am sure she will be very surprised. Thank you for the love you have shown our family.

Last month I wrote that we were kind of feeling forgotten. I want you to know that you all responded to that and have sent e-mails and notes of encouragement. We have really appreciated that. I also want you to know that you can e-mail us and ask questions and we will be happy to answer you. Sometimes we don't know what you want to know. Thanks again for blessing our family.

Prayer requests for the week: David and Leah's birthdays

Tracy is very congested pray that it would go away.

Safe travels to D.C. tomorrow

That we would die to self everyday.

Another Week Finished

Hello. This was a crazy week. Monday we learned a technique they use called T4T. (Training for Trainers) It is a tool that we can use on the field. Tuesday we all went to Washington D.C. The weather was great. It was overcast but didn't rain until we were leaving. We didn't really get to spend to much time there so we are planning to go back on a Saturday in the next couple of weeks. Our bus stopped in Union Station and before we even got out of there we witnessed to a lady from Zimbabwe. She was very nice. She had grown up a Catholic and before we left she had invited us to visit her family in Zimbabwe. We then met David's cousin Blair. They had not seen each other for over 20 years. Blair and her family live and work in the D.C. area. Blair if your reading this. Hello. She got us a behind the scenes tour of the Capitol. We had 2 interns take us in the underground tunnels that go from the Congressional offices to the Capitol. Pretty cool. We then took the Metro. The kids had never been on a subway. They had fun. We had 2 Journeyman with us. It helped a lot to have 2 girls that didn't mind giving piggy back rides. My back would have never made it. We visited the White House (just the outside) and then we had to get back. We didn't want the bus to leave without us. It was a very exhausting day.

Wednesday was a hard day because we had so much to do and every time we tried to call someone the phone died. The Internet wouldn't work. Nobody seemed to be picking up their phones. We had classes all day and we were just frustrated. It was just one of those days. Thursday the Lord answered our prayers. After class in the morning our schedule was changed and we were allowed to have Personal Application Time. So all the stuff we couldn't get done Wed. we got done Thurs. What a blessing. God is good all the time. Friday our speaker was Tom Elliff. He has been to McGregor in the past year I think. He was great he talked about forgiveness and breaking the curse of words, listening and keeping the faith. He was great. Those are really great tools to have.

Prayer Requests: We signed the papers yesterday for the house. We should close on Friday.

David's Birthday is Friday, March 14th and Leah's birthday is Sunday March 16th

That David would finish his paper. It is due tomorrow.

For Valerie the lady from Zimbabwe we met in Union Station.

That we would not grow weary. This has been a tough week.

Thank you for all of your prayers.

We are 1/2 way through

Hello again. I can't believe we are already 1/2 way through our orientation. The weeks have just flown by. Next month we will be getting on a plane and leaving for Africa. This week has been a tough one. We had classes about the persecuted church the first part of the week. We learned that the thing that other countries learn the most from missionaries from the US is fear. Isn't that sad. That is what we teach them. I was shocked. It was an awesome class to go through. The last half of the week we learned about Bible Storying. Since most of the world is illiterate we learned how to witness by telling Bible stories. It seems pretty easy until you are the one trying to tell the story. Really you need to remember a lot. Because you can't just tell one story and think that they will get saved. I am still working on that.

The children are doing well this week. The girls got to go to another quad and have a sleep over last night. They stayed with other girls and the chaperone's were 3 of our journeymen (don't worry they are girls). They had a good time. On Tuesday we all will be going up to Washington D.C. to witness and to get familiar riding the Metro and eat in a culturally different place. This is all of the people here and their families. The children are very excited.

We all got our shots yesterday. The kids and David each had 4. I only had 3. Last week I was asked why the difference in number of shots. Well I had shot records for me and the kids but we could not find David's so he is getting a lot. Also I went to Nigeria in 06 and got a lot of the shots that the children are getting now. So that is what the difference is.

Prayer Requests: That we are safe going to D.C. and that we will be able to witness to someone.

Praise: Last week we found out that some medicine that David has to take was going to cost us about $300 for the next 2 months. Well we found out that there is an assistance program for this medicine so now we only have to pay $75 for the next 2 months. It is still expensive but it is a whole lot better. It is payed 100% once we get on the field.

Our house was supposed to close yesterday. However, our buyer needed 2 more weeks. We really need your prayers that it will close by March 14th.

As always please continue to pray that we are walking close with God. Pray that the enemy will stay away from us and pray for those that are being persecuted for believing in Jesus.

Thank you.

Week 2

Hello again. Well week 2 or 2 1/2 is over. We had a great week. We studied anthropology and talked about worldview. Then we got to talk to people that have been in our region and we talked about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. On Thursday we were in a session about tribal religions. This was all so interesting.

It is very cold here. We had snow flurries on Thursday but no real snow to speak of. We are still praying that it would snow just one day for the children to play in. Otherwise the weather is just plain chilly. We have to wear big coats, gloves, hats and scarfs. It is very different than being in Florida.

Yesterday was our first shot day. Everyone did great! David had to get the most shots (4) and Emily had the least (1). They let me take Emily in at 8 a.m. so that she would not fret over it all day. It made it very easy for me. The nurses give you shots 2 at a time here. Believe it or not it is a lot better than one at a time. We have to go back next Friday for another round. Everyone will get 4 shots each then. Ug!

Our group has been going well. Every morning we get together for worship. We have been reading Acts as a group. House church is a lot of fun. We have been able to get closer to God and each other by doing it this way.

Thank you so much for those who wrote comments and e-mails. It was such an encouragement. Please keep them coming. We haven't gotten any mail yet. (except for Valentine's Cards) We will keep looking.

Prayer Requests: That we walk closer and closer with God.
Transition for children. (right now Micah he is having a rough week)
Friday - shots again
David has a 20 page paper due in 2 weeks

Thank you as always.

Week 1

I am sorry that I can't blog more but the internet is hard to get out here. Speaking of out here I know a lot of you have questions about where we live. We live in quads. Each family has what looks like a small apartment and they are attached by a common area in the center. Our apartment has 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette. We also have a full size washer and dryer. We do not have any t.v.'s and it has been really nice. We don't really have time for it with everything that we are doing. The children don't seem to miss it. There are 2 couples and 1 other family in our quad. It is beautiful out here. There is a lake and lots of hills. It is in farm area. It snowed in the middle of the night the other day. I happened to look out the window and saw it snowing so I woke all of the children up so that they could see it. I pray that it snows one more tiem in the middle of the day so that they can play in it. Target and WalMart are about 6 miles away. We can eat at the cafeteria for all of our meals. Which means I don't have to cook. Very nice! We go to classes while the children are in school. Some are your normal insurance kind of things and some teach about church planting and that kind of thing. Last week David had the flu. He was really sick until about Tuesday. Micah then got it and had to miss going to the circus on Valentine's Day with his class. He was really diappointed. Leah went with her class and took pictures for Micah. (very sweet) Emily got to go rock climbing on Friday with her class. She climbed a 54ft. wall twice. Her classmates were very impressed.

This weekend we drove up to Fredricksburg and toured a Civil War battleground. We then went to where Stonewall Jackson died. We actually saw the room and bed where he died. It was pretty neat. It is amazing that all of us are here with the amount of men that died in that war. We had a good time. It was nice to get away.

Prayer concerns for this week are: That everyone would stay healthy.
We have our first shot clinic on Friday pray for the children especially.
That we would not get overwhelmed with all of the stuff that we have to get done.
That we would get closer to God here.
That David & I would be good group leaders.
That everything would go as planned with the sell of our house. ( Feb. 29th)

We miss you all. If you would like to send letters, cards etc. Our address here is 16492 MLC Ln. 4C Rockville, VA 23146. That will come to directly to us. Also you can still write e-mails to us at tracy_delac@yahoo.com 0r david_delac@yahoo.com We would love to hear from everyone. We are kind of feeling forgotten. Please e-mail and let us know what is going on in your lives. I just looked at our e-mail address' if for some reason you can not just click on them the space between both of our names is an underscore. Thank you to anyone who has left a comment on the blog. We love them, keep them coming. Thank you again for your prayers.

Hello from Orientation

Well we made it to orientation and I have not been able to get to a computer until now. We left San Antonio last Thursday and drove to the Ft. Worth area. We stayed at our friends house that caravaned with us. We helped them pack up and met their friends and family who were all great. We also got to go to dinner with other IMB friends and it was wonderful to see them. On Saturday we left Texas and met up with more friends in Little Rock, AK. We stayed the night in Jackson, TN. On Sunday we had the priveledge to do a missions moment for First Baptist Jackson, TN. We were travelling so we did not get to meet anyone there but I want you to know you are being prayed for from here. Thankyou for partnering with our family. The prayers go both ways. From there we went to Kingsport, TN and stayed the night. We had a bit of a scare there. We thought Micah had been kidnapped. Let me explain. When we got to the room there were a lot of problems from the bed not being made to half empty gatorade bottles in the refrigerator. We had 3 rooms right together and everyone going from room to room watching the game or playing or writing a paper for school (David). David comes in to the "game" room and I said where is Micah? Then we can't find him. So all the adults are searching the hotel. Well it ends up that Micah was asleep on the bed under all of the blankets. He is so little we couldn't find him. So we had a little scare and now we can laugh about it. We drove to Virginia on Monday and have been setting up house for 2 days. We have made so many Wal Mart runs its not even funny. Today we started classes and we found out that they have chosen us to be small group leaders. Please pray that we do a good job.

The children are doing great. In fact right now I have to go pick them up from school. Thank you so much for your prayers. If there is something we can be praying for you about please let us know.