Please God, not Africa!

The past week and a bit have been fairly uneventful.  The packing has begun.  The mess in the house is....perpetual.  Why does packing UP stuff seem to make such a mess??  It's three weeks today that we fly out.  Three. Weeks! Empty rooms... Empty Closets. These are the clothes Nate and I have left in our closet... Here's the room above the garage where we're going to store all our stuff.  Looks organized, doesn't it?? Can you find Nolan hiding in this pic?  He's wearing orange! And this box in the photo above....do you know what this is?  It's not JUST an ordinary shoe box.  It's special.  Because whatever each child can fit in ONE of these, is what they can take to Africa. This is Nolan's box...half packed.  Wanna know what's in it??  It makes me laugh.... The little white bundles are his "dinky cars", individually wrapped in Kleenex for protection, like little mummies being preserved.  And wh

In the last seven days, we have seen God work in amazing ways.  Here's how it's gone down: 1.  We sold our van.  A lovely family that we know through homeschooling has decided to purchase it and I know they will take good care of our "Vantastic!"  Miracle! 2.  We sold our pop-up trailer.  Another lovely family we know has decided to take it off our hands. 3.  Our visas.  They arrived promptly on Wednesday last week.  Things went smoothly ~ everyone is allowed in the country. 4.  OUR HOME IS RENTED!!!  I saved the best for last!  I just finished signing all the papers about 10 minutes ago and I can tell you that we are so super excited to have this last item checked off the list.  Mountain MOVED! Thank you for praying about this with us.  Thank you for your encouragement and for asking how things are going, and for so much more.  We have been so encouraged when you have told us you are praying daily for the rental of the home and GOD HAS ANSWERED!  He gets al

I've been less than good at continuing to count miracles in the last several weeks.  So much has happened and we've been super busy but I have, nonetheless, been lacking in counting. We got home from training last Saturday afternoon.  On Sunday, we spent the entire day at a family reunion and met up with some friends at the reunion who came home with us Sunday night and slept over. These are the kinds of friends that everyone needs.  Everyone. Jay and Krista are kindred spirits to us in their heart for missions.  They spent three and a half months in Papau New Guinea with their three very small children on a work project.  They are also kindred spirits to us in other ways. Jay and Nate are double-trouble, kindred spirit, red-neck, handyman, motor-head, weirdos.  Krista is a home-schoolin', tough-love momma with a creative flair that makes everything she touches look gorgeous.  I am a home-schoolin', tough love momma who likes having people like Krista in my life