onward

In an effort to pack up our week with Grammy and Pop-Pop and get everything in 50 lb. bags again, I  handed baby girl to Lily and asked her to please just hold her for a few minutes.  

When I came back five minutes later, I found this...

and thought, AMEN.

THIS is how we all feel.

MAN, as I think back from this time of "furlough", it is remarkable how many places we have been and how much we have done and how many people we have seen.  We started it all off with camping in Ohio, visiting in Georgia and Tennessee, back to Ohio, off to England, out to Philly, back again to Ohio down to North Carolina, then to Philly again, off to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Kansas.  Ohio.  Delaware.  Ohio.  Ft. Myers, Florida.   

I have packed and unpacked and repacked a thousand times since leaving Haiti, it seems, and we have spent some insane amount of time on the road.  We have gotten to do SO MANY THINGS and see so many dear ones and make so many memories and I am SO THANKFUL for (almost :) every single bit of it.  

Tonight, we drove our last 2.5 hours to Miami, and are now sleeping in the airport hotel waiting for our flight home tomorrow afternoon.

When we think and talk about getting home, seeing our friends and coworkers and students and pets and beds!, ah...we all well up with Hallelujahs.

How He has protected us feels nothing short of a miracle this furlough.  How He has spoken.  Provided.  Taught.  Stretched.  Rested us.  Grown us.  Nothing short of a lot of grace and a lot of protection and a lot of provision.  And a lot of prayer.

We are so incredibly ready to get back to the work He's called us to in Haiti.  So incredibly ready to be in one place for a good long while.  So incredibly ready to KNOW where everything IS :)  Very ready to take our girls home.  Very thankful to have our calling, as stretching as it often is, be HOME, too.  Bring such joy to our hearts.

Very thankful to have YOU, here and there and everywhere, be family, too.

If you support our little family, I want to THANK YOU.  THANK YOU for holding our ropes, for sending us out, for holding us up, for being how He provides.

If you pray for our little family, I want to THANK YOU, and tell you how strongly your prayers are felt and seen.  Keep on, faithful family...a big year is ahead of us!

And if you love us, I want to THANK YOU, because it is unmerited, and so powerful, and we are so BLESSED by it.

Who KNOWS what this year holds???

He does.  God knows.  

And we can't wait to see Him at work, to be a part of that work if He will use us for His glory, and to share in it with you!

Whether by love or support or prayer...thank you for standing, and going, with us.