Notice!

<<<< Right over there on the side we just added a page for this year's trip. Lots of pictures to look at, so check it out! While you're there check out the other trips' pages.

Logistics

Things are getting so crazy...
Mom got the car packed earlier, so now I guess we just have to pack ourselves. Kali just dropped Jesse and me off at home. Mom headed out the door to pick Erica up from  the high school, while Dad walked in after picking Tyler up from the middle school. Austin, Mr. King, Denny, and Nicole should be arriving shortly so we can all squeeze into two vehicles for our long trip to D.C. We are supposed to depart at 7:20 tonight and will be in Miami a little later tonight. Tomorrow we get an early start and will fly to Panama City then on to Manaus, where we will jump on our boat.
We will return soon with many stories, pictures, souvenirs, and hopefully a new outlook on life. In the mean time pray for us, think of us often, and email us at 881631548712@msg.iridium.com in 150 characters or less (including spaces). Please remember we will be reading all our messages out loud each night when we do our evening worships. Unfortunately we cannot reply to your messages, but we do enjoy reading them all :)
Thank you for all of your support and prayers.
Paige

Holy Cow!

We're getting right down to the wire now. We only have a few more things to pack but for the most part we are ready. (I think!)

This is getting to be really exciting...we can't thank everyone who helped us enough!

Countdown

Hey!
Sorry its been so long since I've written....
Anyways thanks to everyone who has helped us get this far. We couldn't make it without you.
Well we're down to a week and a half before we leave and our house is starting to get crazy. We're pulling out clothes and starting to pack the coolers. We bought tons of snacks and are now trying to divide them between the six of us. We have to get everything we need for two weeks into the coolers and keep it under 50 pounds. So much work still left to do, but its definately gonna be worth it. We'll come back with nice tans and lots of stories. Thanks everyone for your help.
Paige

Getting Closer...

We're getting down to the wire. We only have about $3,600 more to raise before we are all set to go to Brazil.
It's getting close and its to the point where it gets really exciting! We've already started setting things aside that we want to bring. Today we cleaned our rooms and our closets and found clothes and trinkets that we dont use anymore that we can bring to give away to the people. I can't wait to see the kids' faces when we hand them new clothes and toys.
Anyways thanks for everyones support.
Paige

Sleep in Comfort !!!

Congratulations Emily Rothery...You are the latest winner of a Brazillian hamock.  Emily, we have 3 hammocks left.  See picture to choose the color you want (Blue, Green, Red).  We expect to see you sleeping and napping in it often.


We will be thinking of you when we are sleeping in our hammocks in brazil :)


Paige


P.S.  We are now at $4,900 in our fundraising.  thank you to everyone that has helped.  we still have $10K to go.  I know we can make it.

A Couple of Updates

Hey!
Just wanted to update everyone. By the end of December we raised $3,800; thank you so much to everyone who donated. Here's the catch...we only have a little less than 3 months till we leave and we still have $11,200 before then. Please send our info to everyone...we need to do some serious fundraising these next couple of months.
Also just wanted to point out that on the side of the blog we have links to our other pages that have pictures and stories from previous years. Please check those out so you can see what we've done. They are a working progress and are not complete yet but give you an idea of what is going on. You can comment at the bottom of any of those pages (or any of our posts for that matter). And please do! We want to hear your questions so we can answer them and we also want feedback and advice. We want to know that people are really seeing this so please comment...we will try to get back to you as quickly as possible. It's so great to get feedback!
Also just keep checking out our facebook pages (Todd, Shelby, or Paige Cosgrove). We are trying to spread the word to as many people...if we can get more people to donate, each person needs to donate less. If you could all give just $1 and then passed our info on and those people gave $1 and passed the info on...and etc. our donations would increase exponentially and we would meet our goal in no time. Comment on this or on facebook if you want to donate anything.
Thank you for your support!
The Cosgroves

Candy Sales

Thanks to everyone who bought candy! We raised a total of about $400 dollars from the candy sales. :) Thank you, thank you, thank you!
An especially large thanks to all my friends at school who supported us :)
Paige

Winner! Winner! Winner!

Congratulations to NATE HASKINS! You are the first winner in our hammock giveaway. Thanks so much for your donation...and thank you to everyone who donates. We will be giving away more hammocks over the next few months so keep checking the blog to see if your name shows up.

Travel Knowledge

When we divide the amount of money we need to raise for the trip ($15,000) by the miles we need to travel (about 3000 miles one way) that comes out to be about $5 per mile. Using this calculation, with the donations we have raised we can make it to Mayberry, North Carolina right now. But please don't leave us stranded with Barney Fife!

Money Update

Thank you everyone for the strong start to our fundraising. As of today we raised over $1,000 of the $15,000 we need for the trip. So far we don't have any from a foreign country so please send our info and links out to as many different places and people as you can.
Thanks again!
Paige, Erica, Tyler, Jesse

Factoid: If we need $15,000 for the trip, then we need 25,736 Brazilian Real.

Free Hammock (sorta!)

Anybody who donates (any amount) to our upcoming trip will be entered into our drawing for an authentic Brazilian hammock. We will do random drawings between now and March. We will  post the names of the winners on this blog so check us out here. The hammocks are quite comfy (I know from experience) and I know that what you feel inside when you donate will be even nicer than the feeling of relaxing in your new hammock.

Paige

Vacation Time

Want to help people? AND take a vacation at the same time?
Here's how:
We are giving away a week's stay at King's Creek Plantation Time Share in Williamsburg, Virginia to the person who gives the largest donation over $1000. King's Creek is conveniently located near many historical sites. Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, and Yorktown are all just a short drive away. There are also other attractions near King's Creek; Busch Gardens, Water Country USA, Go-Karts Plus, nice restaurants, and great shopping are all near the Time Share. Not to mention the three pools, game room, and club house on site at King's Creek.

Send donations to:

Todd Cosgrove

1345 Heavenly Lane

Keswick, VA 22947

Or Send to:

Far Out Missions

attn: Cosgrove Family

606 Greenville Ave

Staunton, VA 24401

Thanks,
The Cosgroves

Global Warming

Want to make "Global Warming" a good thing? 

We want to go world wide with our fund raising.  You can help us a couple ways. 
1. send us a donation  :)  yeah that was easy! 
2. We want to get donations from as many differenet countries as we can.  If you know anybody from another country please forward them our information. Any amount is helpful...it doesn't have to be a large donation because it all adds up.  We will track the donations and post them here on our blog.

Thanks again for helping us get to Brazil so we can warm the hearts of the little children of the Amazon River region.

Hammock

So I'm already getting prepared for this trip. I've been practicing my hammock-sleeping skills. We went camping last weekend and I slept out under the stars bundled up in the hammock. When we got back home this week I washed the hammock to get the smokey smell out of it and hung it back up. Last night I went upstairs and decided "hey! why not? I'll just sleep in the hammock tonight" I woke up quite refreshed this morning and I can not wait to have 2 weeks of this very restful sleep.

Paige
(needless to say this ISN'T me :P )

Hey There

Hey everyone!
I'm Paige and I want to keep anyone and everyone updated on our trips to Brazil (previous and present). So I'm going to try to get my parents and my siblings to help me post on a regular basis so you can see what progress has been made for out trip. Hopefully you will get to see our different levels of excitement, fear, and anxiety for this coming trip by seeing posts from each of us. So let the fun begin :)
Paige 
PS. Comment at the bottom of our posts if you have questions that you would like us to answer :)

Video

Here is the video our family made to show everyone what the "typical mission trip" is like, if it's even possible to have a "typical" mission trip :) Enjoy it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NBrmf71U7k

Arixi

I have been to Brazil and the Amazon river area for missions trips since 2004.  Far Out Missions has been a wonderful experience and I have started getting ready for our trip to Arixi Brazil.

This year I plan to take my wife Shelby and our 4 kids, Paige, Erica, Tyler and Jesse.  These trips have been life changing, not only for the people of the Amazon region we go to help, but for all the American missionaries (like me) that have the privilege to go.