Sorry for the longer post. However its the most important one yet. Just take three minutes.. Go on..read!

In the story of Gideon, God told him to pick out 300 soldiers to go to battle with him and out of the 32,000 God showed him how he was to pick the best and most courageous soldiers. God knew that if Gideon had that many soldiers that the glory would not go to Himself but to Gideon. This story strikes me on a couple different levels:

1. Gideon was very unsure of his calling and asked God THREE times to show him that it indeed was His will. We have asked WAY more than three and He is faithful to confirm it many times.

2. 32,000 men volunteered to go to battle and defeat the Midianites. Good! Great! However God said “”Gideon, there are too many men to help you. When you defeat the Midianites with this many men you will say ‘We did it by ourselves’. I will not get the glory I deserve. Lead these men to the hills, and I will tell you which ones I want you to take.” We get that He wants all the glory. Probably why He chose us, He knew we couldn’t come up with that kind of cash on our own.

Here the deal. We need soldiers to go fight this battle! All of Hell would like us to meekly ask for your support, and quietly go unnoticed. That’s not going to happen! We need 100 people to give $300.00. It’s that simple.  Here’s what we are asking you do today before you go to sleep…

1. Pray! Ask Him if you are to be one of the 100. He will lead you in this. Just ask Him.

2. Just Do IT! If you feel like yes He wants me to do this I will step out in faith and give 300.00…then do so right here.

We know some of you can’t give $300.00. We know. God knows. He also knows that some of you can give $600.00 or $900.00 becoming two or three soldiers in one. We will be updating on the progress of how many we are getting one by one.

Today at church we did a video and Pastor Kelly asked the entire congregation to go to the blog and give. It was awesome and I know a lot of people were touched and inspired to go do awesome things for Christ. Please know that is our hearts… we believe that EVERYONE is called to be a leader in His kingdom. That none of us are called to mediocrity. He is just waiting for you to ask Him.

This morning someone came up to me after church and was so”impressed” by us and our faith. Her actual words were “I’m totally writing you out a check because I’m so thankful He isn’t calling us to do this.” While I was grateful for her generosity my heart ached for her. I wanted to shout “Don’t you know you were created for greatness? Don’t you understand that He is waiting to use you for awesomeness?” We are no different from you. We are saved by grace just as you are. Maybe your greatness is to give to this, to help a hurting and dying world find hope and love thru Jesus. Please ask God if you are to be one of the “elite 100”. (OOOH doesn’t that sound powerful? )

Thank you already to those who have committed to partnering with us in this as we take some crazy steps forward. We are praying for 30 of you to do this within this week, we can’t wait to give you HIS report!!!!

Excited to serve Him,

Platts

Please make checks out to us with the memo “And God said go” and send to:

13427 190th ave nw

Elk River Mn 55330

Or Donate right here!

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised. Gen 28:15

Rewind all the way back to…September 2010. Not so hard, right? God spoke to us concerning Samm’s job. He was to quit his job and go into ministry. We had NO idea what that looked like. We thought and prayed and kinda put it on the back burner.

Until February 2011…I was washing dishes and I heard what I now know was God’s voice say, “YWAM New Zealand…GO.” What?! Why? Isn’t that just for young kids, God? Not us, with three preschoolers?? Um, hello? All I could think was how I am NOT flying in a plane for 20 plus hours, with three bouncing boys…I am simply not. …Right, God? I am NOT…right????

Curious, I went and looked it up, to find out that YWAM New Zealand has one of only THREE family ministry programs. In this program, the entire family is studying God’s Word, applying, and getting ready to help others who need to know what a Godly family, marriage and parenting looks like.

So I knew at that moment…I am going on a plane with three bouncing boys for 20 plus hours. Which is precisely the moment my knees hit the floor. I knew that if He could show this same plan to Samm and he agreed, it was going to happen.

SO HONEY….we are, um…supposed to move to New Zealand. I think…possibly…

I know from my sales background that if you want someone to buy what you are selling, you gotta believe in it 100%! I SO did not do that…at all.

At first Samm was too freaked to even begin to think this was possible. So we chewed on it..all the while I was like “really God can’t we skip this step of him believing it, because you and I both know it’s going to happen?” God likes to work on my patience…a lot. It was Sunday night, and every time we talked about this insane plan, it brought us to tears. That night we were talking about why all the people in the Bible got writing on a wall, a burning bush, sheep’s wool? We knew God could give us a sign..but would He? So that night I asked God to confirm it if we are to go.

Monday morning I was doing the mom thing…unable to even focus I poured the boys cereal… (Yes, I give my kids things other than a hot nutritious breakfast. Don’t judge.) However, I was on the phone, and they were whining about how they didn’t want to eat it and it was gross..and they were eating it…barely. I looked over and saw that I had given them both jars of baby food that was supposed to go to Cyrus…with spoons and everything!!! I laughed so hard, they thought I was crazy, (good times at the Platt house). We haven’t had TV in our house for 6 months so I didn’t even know until I checked Facebook “ Earthquake in New Zealand”. My jaw dropped, I called Samm and He felt it too. Now you might say that’s a coincidence; earthquakes happen all the time. But if you are praying for a specific sign and He sends you one, you better believe it.

There are other things he has shown us. An old friend called to tell me that she had a dream of us on a airplane and we said we were heading to New Zealand!! Goosebumps! He has been preparing us for this without us even knowing it…don’t ya love when He does that? Our house has been on the market for four months so we don’t have to go thru all that paperwork. We didn’t get into the school we wanted for Eli, so we don’t have to say no to that. For some crazy reason I don’t have any weddings booked for the summer…in my five years of business, that has never happened before. When God clears a path, you start walking. So here we are. In less than five months we are taking our family to live on a base in New Zealand to hear what God wants to tell us and minister to the people who need Jesus in that country.

So that’s where you come in For those who want to see the hope and love of Jesus spread in all the world we ask you to commit with us as we step out in faith in God .We ask that you will step with us and partner with us in these three things.

1) Pray. Pray. Pray. It’s not an after thought its the ground work for all that God will do, pray that we will have favor with many people to be able to raise the funds. Pray that God will be our focus and our reason for going and that we will stay on that focus the whole time never straying from that.

2) Spread the word. When you re-post our facebook link and share our blog, you help us to reach a greater audience, you bring more partners to help God do great things. Tell people you know.  So many people want to help do good things and spread God’s name, but don’t know where to start. This is a great way for people to help spread the love of Jesus.

3) Give money.  The fact is that this whole process will be expensive, but through God all things are possible.  Please partner with us as we share the truth of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. You can donate through pay pal here. Again thank you So very much, we CANNOT do this without you.

Samm and Angie

Or e-mail us platt14@msn.com

2 Samuel 24:24
But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

I meditated on this verse all weekend. What does it mean to live the christian life…really live it?? Here’s what it means to us right now. We are selling/giving/throwing every single possession we own. There are times in this whole process my human mind wants to cling to a certain thing, and think no I really want to hang on to that. Pretty soon “that” becomes a whole garage full of stuff. It’s amazing how wrapped up in our “stuff” we are. Thru this process we cling to that verse. In the end we want to have done EVERYTHING we possibly could have to make this possible. Then we want to sit back, hang on and see God do all the rest.

We lead a small group and through that we have seen these people’s life change! We have seen things only God could have done. However it’s not something you can’t pour your heart and soul into and expect change…it must cost you something. Day after day we offer our lives up to God, we beg Him to use us and change us, so then we can reach a lost and dying world. Everything we do or don’t do matters to God. EVERYTHING. I want to offer my life so that it has to cost me something, because really what else do you offer the creator of the universe? Lunch? My life is all I have and I don’t even want it, unless He can use it. This ride has been INTENSE. We are getting attacked in every direction, we are clinging to hope. We wait on Him. Even when we question (of course we do) we remind each other daily “let God handle that”. Then there comes in the panic when we are actually knowing 100% we are going..oh crap then what? In the midst we have joy and are becoming so humbled that He is picking us to go change lives all the way in New Zealand.

Here is an update on what we have been doing to prepare.

We got accepted into the Ywam Program, just need to make a down payment.

We got our passports in. Taking three boys to the Government center for an hour and a half was SUPER fun:)

Our house is all but sold! contingent on the buyers financing.

Letters are finished and getting all our address ready.

Purging like crazy!!

Thanks for reading and supporting us. If you feel led to give you can do so right here on our blog!

Thrilled to be serving Him.