Joyful Exciting Surrender!!!

I’m Learning to place EVERYTHING in the hands of the Lord.

Easy??

Are you kidding me?

Should I??

Try it and see how He takes control and blesses you in ways you could never imagine!

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand
Proverbs 19:21

We had a plan worked out for the summer for our required 40 hours per week of Partner Development and ALL the other pieces we need to get done before we can leave for Ecuador. We had a schedule all done (a spectacular feat of organizational creativity!). We had a babysitter in place. We had our to-do list…

But God said…”Wait, there is something more I want you to do…Follow Me and see how I bless you WAY beyond your own plans for the summer”

So…

We’re going to do all those other things, but we’ve also been called to go to camp!

Camp?

Yep, we’re going to serve at Victory Valley Camp this summer (through the Bible Fellowship Church denomination) to disciple and mentor the junior staffers!

Discipleship and mentoring… sound familiar? Yes!…that’s going to be a BIG part of our ministry in Ecuador, and God has given us an amazing opportunity to grow in that while we walk alongside 15-17 year olds working through a discipleship program studying Proverbs this summer!

Surrender…even when things come unexpectedly out of the blue!

We’ll go live at the camp, and while our three boys enjoy being campers all summer (they CANNOT wait!!), we’ll be working through all the things we planned on doing in order to get ready for Ecuador, while also having the opportunity to serve and continue to develop skills that will be so valuable in Ecuador!

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:8

The Lord has said “Follow me”, and as we worked through the decision we realized that through obedience to His call and His purpose:

• He’s giving us the opportunity to share the gifts of encouragement, and mentoring with young people as they discover how to become leaders this summer
• Our boys will be engaged each day in an amazing camp program which frees up “work time” for us to do our bible credits, our reading, and our partner development
• We’ll be closer to 15 of the BFC churches which will make trying to build connections and relationships easier
• We’ll be in contact with hundreds of families which is a huge part of meeting all the people God has called to partner with us

Join us in praising God for the ways He provides, the ways He calls us to serve, and the ways His plans are better than anything we could try and organize ourselves! (Hooray for surrender!) And pray with us as we know we’ll have to be very careful to guard our time and our energies in order to keep both our family and our Partner Development work as priorities.

The kids had to surrender their fear in order to conquer “Goliath” the zipline!

Learning to trust…

Taking each step placed before you…

And enjoying the blessings that come from obedience!

The Many Faces of Friendship!

We’ve been back in PA a week and a half and have really enjoyed getting settled back in here! Everyone did great on the drive back although the “cafeteria mamita” wasn’t nearly as well stocked as on the trip out, and we had to stop a little more for food…part of the problem was there just wasn’t any more room in the car to put anything!

It has been great being “home”…getting reacquainted with our house, our woods, our friends here. Coming home was nice!

Those 5 weeks while we were gone though, we had such a great time visiting “home” in Salida, and also in Denver, and thought it would only be right to share with you all why we love being those places so much! It was a time to visit dear friends and share in some serious laughter!

Halfway through our time, I realized we hadn’t taken any pictures….and part of leaving well is having things to remind us of special people and places in our lives. And so, we’d just like to present some of the many (super special) faces of our life ‘out there’….(there were lots we missed though too)

Oh, and P.S. to our “other home” here in PA…get ready, we’ll have to think of something special for you guys too!

This was pre-silliness!

Missionaries to the nations!

He just thinks if he can fit in the carseat, he can be part of the crew!

ummm….something happened here, no silliness!

Karate lessons!

Visits were waaaay too short!

Somehow the karate master shows up in all these pictures!

Love how friendships just pick up like we’ve never been gone!

We said silly, not smoochin’!

Our pastoral staff!

Our first ever trip to Crispy Creme!

Masquerade ball silliness!

A great night laughing in Missouri!

Many many hours in the car later….

And the fun carried right on in to PA! Look out Lehigh Valley…you are next!

Man, what a GREAT way for me to start my day…looking at all these fabulous friends!! …and I used to think that Christians wouldn’t be any fun! HA! If you made it all the way to the bottom of this, NICE JOB! Hope you are smiling too!

Deeeeeeep Breath!!!

We finished Appointee Orientation at WorldVenture almost two weeks ago (already??), but we left Denver at a gallop and our to-do lists landed a little deeper in our suitcases as we headed up to WinterPark and then to Salida for some packed days of visiting, garage sale-ing (a sunny warm successful day!), presenting, and hugging!

The kids had a blast making signs!

Friends helped out too!

Now that we are getting ready to get back on the road (final destination Wind Gap, PA), those lists are starting to whisper again…”don’t forget about us…we’re still waiting”. And they are huge!

We are officially 100% into a full-time season of Partner Development.

What’s that???

We don’t leave for Ecuador until we have a team, a complete team going “with” us. A team of partners who have committed to God that they will support what He is sending us to do financially (monthly support), a team of partners who have committed to pray for us as we step out in faith, and a team of partners who have committed to be cheerleaders for us spurring us on when our feet feel heavy and tired.

Thank goodness for that team!!!

Have you considered partnering with us? You can see how at WorldVenture.com/themessickcrew

As we work to build that team over the next months, we also will be working through a series of books and reports to help us prepare for other aspects of life on the field; educating our children, stress, cultural adaptation…

lots and lots of boxes to check off!! wowzers!

There is lots to do!
Some days it is more than overwhelming…
But, one step at a time, in God’s timing we’ll get it all done! And we are excited to get going!

First step….we realized we needed to sync our devices…

yes…our devices have no buttons, but they work!

We’ve been working on planning out our days (yes it feels every bit as scary as it looks for us non-scheduled types!!)…

I think we’ll need a bell or something to change periods!!

And we keep praying that God will order our days, lead our conversations, strengthen our team, and prepare the hearts of those we will be sharing with.

Every bit of this time is His, and we are excited to see how God builds up this team of partners helping us get ready to serve in Ecuador! Thanks for praying for strength, discipline and joy during these busy busy months to come!!!

Held

…from yesterday

Working in a quiet house this morning. Matt took the boys to sort and repack the trailer after our garage sale this weekend. A fun, chaotic, sunny, busy day! (I’ll try to post some pictures later)

I’ve got a pile of ‘admin’ stuff to work on while Taylah is trying to catch up from a few too many late nights and nap-missed days!

As I was working a few moments ago, a bird crashed into one of the big beautiful windows. It was the same sweet little blue bird I had been watching flit about on an old stump as I worked.

I went out and picked up the bird, he lifted his little head and his little claws grabbed onto my hand…almost a feeble little “thank you” as I carried him out of the wind and put him down in a protected area of the porch.

We know the feeling of being held…so thankful!

Held.

Carried.

Cared for.

What an image of what God does for us in the trials of life, and we are called to do for others.

This has been a hard few weeks on my heart as one friend has been recovering from a major health crisis in Calgary, another friend is facing serious legal issues, and another sweet friend lost her mother suddenly and unexpectedly.

More often than not we don’t know what to say, what to do, how to help, or even how to pray.

But we are called in Galatians 6:2 to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

After a bit he was ready to stand on his own again!

My heart is so cheered as I saw my little friend fly by a few moments ago. He was knocked down and needed someone to carry him out of the storm into a place of calm for a few moments so he could catch his breath and find the strength to carry on.

Who is God putting on your heart to hold and care for today?

Meet Ted!

The kids are doing some “TCK orientation” (third culture kid) while we are in our sessions. They’ve been exploring different things like how to eat new (and possibly icky) food, how to introduce yourself, and little bits about transition and change.

Ted is a GIGANTIC stuffed bear that lives at WorldVenture with Miss. Sheryl O’Brien (WorldVenture’s TCK coordinator). He loves to visit with the new TCK kids as they are spending time at WorldVenture preparing for the field. He has his own suitcase and actually comes to have sleepovers with different families each night. In his suitcase, he has some special things that help to make him feel at home…his stuffed rabbit, his journal, his Bible storybook, his plate and his blanket.

The kids loved having Ted come to stay….

They needed to make sure they read him a bedtime story from his Bible, and tucked him in under his blanket with his rabbit. The next morning they needed to write in his journal for him to remember his special time staying with them.

Ted helps the kids to think a little bit about the special things they can take with them as they travel to feel more at home!

The next morning Ted got a special treat as the kids spent about 20 minutes letting him run off his energy up and down through the hallway here!!

Thanks for coming to visit Ted!

Back to our WorldVenture “home”

Heard late Thursday 10 hours into our driving from Micah…

“I am so glad we’re going to just drive all the way to WorldVenture, I can’t wait to get there”.

Rewind back to Monday after my packing wizard of a husband assessed our luggage space…

And we dealt with a few stow aways

We got all packed up for our 6 week trip to Denver.

We left last Tuesday anticipating arriving on Friday with a crew who knew it would be long, but armed with school work and activities, were ready for the adventure!

Snack time was a favourite….especially as the static-filled “overhead speaker announcement” always had some random quirky instructions from the flight deck!

Who knew the front seat could become a full service kitchen!

After a fun stop in St. Louis to visit friends and make a trip to the Zoo, we decided to combine the last two days of driving into one (13.5 hrs) because we were all too excited to get “home” to WorldVenture and see all the things we remembered.

This however, was a new activity….stair sliding!

We got to hang out this weekend getting settled in our little ‘house’ and visiting with some special friends in Denver!

The kids made signs for their door

There are probably 15 kids here so our crew is having a great time making new friends!

Mom and Dad are working so hard learning, we don’t have any pictures yet! Will try to get some soon!

One of the best parts of being here so far has been visiting with old friends, meeting new, and re-connecting with folks at the office! There are 7 other families taking part in the orientation travelling to 5 different countries to do so many different things…so cool to see how God takes the lives of his children and puts such different calls on them! We serve an AWESOME God!!

PREGNANT MAMA MOMENT:

My biggest blunder so far this week is that I got totally confused as to date and day…somehow I got myself convinced (and by default all the rest of our family) that it was Elijah’s birthday TODAY….but it is tomorrow (the 10th). When I finally broke the news to him, he was ok with waiting and just wanted to make sure I had brought the decorations so that it will be decorated when he wakes up! (check!). Thank you to those of you who sent birthday cards…they are all ready and waiting for him for tomorrow! He’s going to be thrilled! Can’t believe he’ll be FIVE!!

As we delve more into learning how to prepare our family for the field these next two weeks, we are excited to see the things the Lord has for us to learn. Thank you for your prayers for open and teachable hearts! (And for some rest in the chaos….6 families with a whole wack of kiddos all ‘living’ here makes it so much fun but definitely overstimulation central!!)

Who flushed the toilet??

Come on, you’ve yelled it out a shower curtain, or at least wanted to. You know, you were enjoying a nice hot shower and suddenly the water pressure turned to a trickle (or waaaay worse changed temperature dramatically). You try to stand under the drip…drip…drip and wait for the toilet bowl to finish filling and the water pressure to return so you can finish rinsing the soap out of your hair.

Have I ever confessed my best thinking happens in the shower? It is one of the only quiet places in my world!!

So, I was in the shower thinking about water pressure and hoping that nobody would flush the toilet and steal my glorious hot water, and I started to think about the blog. The blog I haven’t been writing for a long time. The blog that is waiting to be updated but keeps getting pushed down the to-do list in favour of other biggies that have needed to get done as we work to get back to the field.

My time, energy and creative flow is a little like a household plumbing system. Everyone’s is (unless you are someone that can consume vast amounts of coffee and work all hours of the night!) You can’t turn on all the faucets in the house at one time and expect any of them to work effectively. I can’t expect to try and work on a hundred projects at once and do them well. I am learning that I need to use my energy and the hours in a day wisely if I hope to get anything done (even though I still think somehow I’ve got superpowers and can do it all!).

So, from time to time, I have to turn a faucet way down or even off completely to direct the water pressure to another spot.

Since January, we’ve been working hard to get all our ducks in a row for interviews at WorldVenture as we hope to transition from mid-term missionaries to being appointed as career missionaries the first week of March.

There were biographical sketches to be done, doctrinal statements to be hashed through and written as well as the always time-consuming process of trying to find the best price for plane tickets. Alongside that, we’ve been working through plans, vision statements, really working to understand what the Lord is asking us to do and trying to map out the next months.

We’ve also started to work through some online bible credits. This is one of the requirements that WorldVenture will have of us before we are given clearance to leave for the field, and so we are trying to make sure we are each finding enough time in the week to get our “schoolwork”done!

It has been a busy time for us trying to find common hours to work at the computer!

There are some faucets I can’t turn off. And really, I am thankful for those. The mama faucet needs to stay on full blast. Sometimes I try to turn down the wife faucet a bit but realize that is always a bad idea (that one works best when running full blast too!) The homeschool faucet needs to stay open five days a week, as does the “keeping life going” faucet (laundry, groceries…).

Keeping the faucet open that allows me to spend time with God is so important because for some reason, the more water that pours out of that faucet, the higher the water pressure seems to be in all the others. Interesting.

We have some other administrative pieces we’ll be working on these next few weeks, but I hope soon to get back to updating the blog. Our goal is to get many of these big pieces done that are ‘behind the scenes’, and then get back to sharing all He’s doing in our lives as God continues to show us the path to Ecuador.