So most of you have heard me bragging about how funny my kids are. Right? Well this is one of those times. So if you don’t like that go ahead and go back to whatever it was you were doing. For the rest of you thanks for stopping by.

My kids are how shall I say this…challenging? No. Lets just say they have a will and know how to use it. However they are also the sweetest and really amazing boys this side of the river. Like today…

I was cleaning my kitchen listening to Eli & Max in the backyard playing. They were standing on our retaining wall and “swording” each other. Max got Eli pretty good and said “Ha! take that Devil” Eli (apparently didn’t want to play this whole good vs. evil game) said ” Max!! I don’t want to be the Devil!” Max says ” too bad I called Jesus first”. Then I hear him jab him again(right after I told him NO JABBING.) He says even louder ” That’s for making my mom cry and making her worry about New Zealand!”  Wow.

Now we are pretty open with our kids. We pray about it and we tell them what “faith” is. As if we know.  At that moment I started to cry and knew that my almost four-year old understood it. Even perhaps better that we do. I did not grow up in a christian home, it sucked and was insane. So when I see my kids “get it” its an amazing-super-proud-my-God-rocks kind of moment. Thought I’d share it. It definitely put a smile on my face. Thank God we get to start over with our lives and have the option to make different choices. Thank God his mercies are new every morning. Thank God for spunky lil boys that take after their mama.

Ang

Many of you ask how you can help…the obvious answer is giving and praying.

A lot of you are already so there are a couple of things we are asking.

1. Our house just finally sold!! Hurray!! This is a great and awesome thing! However we are in need of a place to stay. We close here on June 27th. So less than a month, until we leave. I know we are a family of five and that’s a lot of people so please pray and ask God first. We are  trusting Him again on this. Thank God its summer…maybe the county park is an option. KIDDING!

2. Please pass the word around. However you pass stuff on these days, facebook, Blogs, emails, twitter just plain ole talking is good. We Need to sell some of our big stuff. Entertainment center, couch, chairs, dressers, john deere lawn mower. We do not want to store this stuff.  We have no room!

3. Please be praying for us. We are just a tad bit stressed and trying to remain calm under it all. We know you are…we have some that have a certain time of day that pray for us everyday. We feel it!

This can only, always ever be about Jesus. It really has nothing to do with the Platt’s, you are not giving to us, you are furthering His kingdom.

Thanks!

Samm & Angie

Yesterday before church, I went downstairs and thought I’m just going to get  alone with God..which with three boys is a RARE and beautiful thing. I started to journal and pour my heart out to The Father and grabbed my bible…(as soon as I did this I got 3 text messages and 2 phone calls) rather annoyed I turned my phone off. No I wasnt annoyed at you, I was annoyed I couldn’t get in the word that’s all. Anyways I prayed a VERY specific prayer that went like this. ” God I’m nervous and scared I need you to confirm it again. God I pray that TODAY you would have me read, see or hear the words New Zealand, then I would know.” Now that might seem weird but honestly when you are doing MAJOR soul surgery you need something to carry you thru the next valley you will be in. So I went to church we did our sunday small group and we came home.

Now every night we have been reading ” Is that really you God?” by Loren Cunningham the man who started YWAM 3o years ago in Hawaii.  It’s an amazing story how he came to know the voice of God all his life. I highly recommend this book! I didn’t want to read it, which is weird because normally I cannot wait until this time of night…kids in bed, us snuggled up reading together and then praying together, its awesome! However I was all like “nah” and Samm was all like yea just one chapter. So like the good submissive wife..ahem…I did. We were almost done with the chapter and I read one of the last paragraphs.

” I had no way of guessing that the launch pad we’d been looking for would turn out to be located in a tiny country halfway around the earth called New Zealand.”

The moment my eyes read New Zealand I bursted into tears. I’d forgotten that I had even asked Him for that it was almost 10:00. I wept and told Samm and he was just amazed and in awe of what He was doing. The way it hit me I just knew. We prayed and I knew that He was going to do it, I just don’t know how.

Today has been hard, I’ve been trying to focus my heart on what  His promises are. I say things like “we are only 6 weeks away and not even half there, God how are you going to do this? I say ” God Im tired. Tired of asking boldly like you have told us to do. Tired of being ridiculed for doing this. Just tired.” Somehow I reach out to Him and all I receive is His peace and gentle release. We are grateful for the support we have been given, so many prayers and people donating…however we know there is alot of you that are reading our blogs and tell us you are excited for us, we need your support. Both prayerfully and financially. We know that He will work in your hearts as He is in ours. Thank you so much for what you have done already.

Psalm 17:7 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to Him, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

So God has done some amazing things already here at the Platt household! We are around 7,000 total donated!! We are doing the fundraiser in three phases in which we are asking that a total of 100 people give 300 dollars. We have almost reached the first phase of thirty donations!! We only need 3000.00 more!! We feel so blessed and all together overwhelmed with His goodness! With the money you have given we were able to put a deposit down on Ywam to hold our spot and we also found some great deals on luggage! Our passports should be here soon and now we are waiting to raise that last 3000.00 so we can purchase our airline tickets! Again thank you! Through this all we have learned a few things..

1. God is in control..we have only the illusion that we are. This is a hard concept for many. However since I’m a control freak this is down right painful. I give it up to Him sometimes every hour on the hour.

2. He is faithful. Thru our family and friends and even perfect strangers He is using you to show us that He has this and will not forsake us. He is using people to be so generous to us so we can go and help change lives. We are so humbled.

So with that a few updates. We will most likely close on our house in three weeks!!! YIKES! Please be praying for that. Not just that it will go smooth but also for our hearts. This is our very first home where we had all of our babies and even though we know its just a home it was ours. We are thankful that God has given us buyers and we are ready for the new adventure He has for us.

We have mailed out all our support letters. Please be praying that the ones who will be giving will know our sincere gratitude. If you did not receive a letter but would like one please email me at platt14@msn.com.

That is all for now! I cannot wait to update you all with news that our first phase is done!

In His grip always,

Samm & Angie Platt

1 Peter 5:7 “Cast your burdens on Him, for He cares for you”

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.

      Frequently when people hear about what we are doing I get this response..” Oh wow you guys are amazing, I could never do that, or wow what a leap of faith. Truth be known…we know its a big thing, we know it sounds crazy and insane, however you want to know what else we know? WE ARE NOT ANYTHING SPECIAL. He’s called you to things for His glory. You either did it or didn’t. It’s that simple. All we are is crazy enough to actually do it. We don’t have amazing faith, we don’t sit around at night and sings psalms over our children. We are normal screwed up people…just like you. What is SO awesome about the God we serve is He ALWAYS uses the mundane, ridiculously normal and makes it EXTRA-ORDINARY!

     We want you to know how humbling it is to be used, how humbling it is for people to be praying and giving their own cash to the mission of changing lives for Jesus across the world! We thank God everyday for people who have been giving and praying to this. Please know there is something He is asking you to do for him right now…He never looks at you and says ” ok you’re good..you’ve done enough”. Be courageous enough to first ask Him what he wants..and secondaly DO IT! Its incredible what He can do with selfish, normal, sinful people like us isn’t it?

Platts

  I decided I wanted to blog about a very serious matter. One that I cannot believe I must fulfill…I must tell you. I can only bring ONE suitcase. Yup. mm-hmm. ONE for six months! I can fit my shoes into one suitcase without batting an eye! I think I have a great idea though. Put Samm’s five outfits with one of the boys stuff and then I can get his suitcase..you know for my shoes. I cannot believe that I won’t have an entire closet to look at and say I have nothing to wear. Or to have changed 32 times only to be back in my super duper comfy sweats. I have No idea what this weather will be, what kind of shoes I need. Are there thrift stores in New Zealand? If not..I am not going. KIdding!! Kind of. Man the things I do for God. That’s all for now, you wanted to know whats on my mind well there it is.

Anyone  wanna get me a GIANT suitcase?

Angie

A. One bite at a time. So that is exactly our mindset when having to raise 35,000 in four months! People are constantly saying they think God will be giving us more than we need. That’s all fine and great but unless God provides a money tree, (which I know, I know He can do) we need His people to be the vessel to do so. We will periodically let you know what we are up to and how much we have raised thus far. We are almost at 2,000 dollars! YAY GOD! This is just from getting the word out there! No fundraising or letters yet! WE know that God has this perfectly planned out! Our goal was to raise enough to get passports and visas done. Goal met! Next goal is to get our $500.00 deposit  to YWAM. If you can help and God is prompting you we are asking that you be a part of this awesomeness which is Gods hand. All of the applications stuff is almost done and now we  just need to get up to date on our vaccinations. Things you could be praying for, as some of you have wanted specifics.

1. Covering. Our good friends/mentors will be meeting us every other week to pray and cover us in this. Please do the same. We have been slammed by the devil, and we just keep getting back up. Platt’s are no wimps!

2. Asking you pray that our family gets on board with this and helps support us in this. …we would just like peace in this area.

3. Changing more people’s lives!!! I LOVE that God is changing people we don’t even know and growing their faith through us and we havent even left yet! He is mighty to save!! We can’t stop talking about God, wherever we go God has been having us open our mouths and speak truth to people. We have invited many people to come check out this Jesus we talk about. The whole reason we are doing this is to change souls destinations.

Thank you for reposting this and sharing with all your friends and family!

In His Grip

Samm and Angie

Ps. woke up to read 2 Cor 6:9 I reminded God of His promises…you should to.