Finding Faith in the Battle

I started this blog decades ago (!) when we were first headed to Africa with our 2 young children. I anticipated adventures that I would enjoy sharing, and indeed we had all sorts of adventures! We spent 3.5 years in Lilongwe and added 2 kids to our crew. Then we all spent another 5 years in Nairobi, Kenya where we had more adventures--both the good and the hard kind. Our beautiful, adventurous young teen Anya was living her best life there. Our tender reed of a son, Ethan, was not. The demands of school and the loss of friend after friend to mission-life transition almost broke him. Silly little 1st grade Isaac and salty but loving pre-school Omara just went with the flow. And we made the heart-breaking decision to take a leave-of-absence from Kenya. That leave-of-absence turned into resignation as it became clearer that God was directing us to stay in the US to support Ethan. Let me be clear--it was one of the most painful things we have ever done. You can read more about it here ...

During a time when it has seemed that life was put on hold, someone suddenly skipped over the 'play' button and went right to 'fast-forward'. On Friday we drove to Ohio, on Sunday the church voted resoundingly in favor of calling Chad as Pastor to Crossing Community Church , and on Monday we went into contract on a new home near the church. We had driven a car-full of packed suitcases and boxes up to Ohio, in what I like to call optimistic planning...but I refused to unpack the car until the vote came in--I may be optimistic, but I'm no fool! Monday, I drove back to North Carolina, Chad followed on Wednesday, and on Friday I flew out for Kenya, to pack up or sell every earthly belonging we had that wasn't in either the pathetically few boxes now sitting in a garage in Ohio, or sitting in a different garage in Oregon. The trip was uneventful, other than a few funny anecdotes appreciated most by those who fly frequently. The TSA man who had to specially x-ray...