Our First Post

Hi guys!
I decided to set up a blog so that our friends and family can know what is going on with us and our global adventures! We are Jeff (39), Jaclyn (28) and Aiden (8) Wilkinson.
We are in the process of an adoption from Ethiopia, and planning mission trips to Niger, West Africa and Perm, Russia. We hope to keep everyone posted about our adventures so that you can pray, laugh, and learn with us. Here are the details on each event this far:

Cooper Wilkinson will hopefully be joining us sometime this summer from his homeland of Ethiopia. We are working with an agency called Hope Adoption Agency. http://www.hopeadoptionagency.org/ Hope is AMAZING! They are based out of St. Louis, MO but the Hope Family spans the US. We don't have a referral ( when they have a child that matches your age and gender request you get a picture and the history of a child, this is known as a referral) yet but once we do, you will all know about it! For those of you familiar with the adoption process we are finishing up our homestudy and waiting on the completion of our documents so that we can send our dossier to Ethiopia. Keep all of this in your prayers for us!!

Now on to Niger. Jeff will be leaving at the beginning of April to head up a team going over to West Africa from our church. The team will be comprised of our Music Minister, his wife, our silly friend Tim Feldman, and about six others from our church that are part of the music and drama teams. Jeff is in charge of leading them down the Mehana Road, a dirt road about 45 miles long with 42-48 villages along it, many of which have never heard the name Jesus nor seen a white person. Please pray for these people known as the "Songhai"; not only that they would learn of their salvation but also because Jeff could be the first white person they meet.... Now that is just plain scary! :) Here is a picture of Jeff in Niger in June 2007:

Jeff, Lawaly, and Allen on Mehana Road

Jeff is so excited to go back and see his friend Lawaly. Lawaly is now employed by our church to disciple villagers who have accepted Christ. He is a huge fan of Jeff's as well.

We don't know alot about our plans for Russia yet but here is the history of our involvement. Back in 2005 I went on a trip with our church to Dniperopetrovsk, Ukraine to help out some missionairies stationed there. They are the Hornes, Brad (dad), Jeanine (mom), and their four daughters Sarah, Emily, Allissa, and Jenna (listed oldest to youngest). We became friends while I was there and in 2006 Jeff went on a similar trip; hanging out with university students and witnessing to them about our life in Christ. In March of 2007 we stepped out in faith with our friend Blake Alldredge ( one of Jeff's fellow Aggies...WHOOP! and also a really good guy) who had been with each of us on our past trips and decided to do a two man and one woman mission trip back to our beloved Dniper because we had an idea then that the Horne's would be heading on to Russia as soon as they could. Now we are making plans to do a summer trip to Perm, which is about 100 miles south of the Siberian border in Eastern Russia. Yikes, right? We plan on eventually doing a hiking, camping, river rafting adventure that will include Russian and American kids. Here is a picture of us with the Horne family from our last trip to Dniper: