so we trust.

Grading is finished, most student registration for next semester is done, girls are done with school as of today, and while I wish I could say we're all caught up on office work...that has never ever been the case, so there's no point breaking tradition now.  Nonetheless, it is officially mostly Christmas break, and tomorrow morning we head for four days in the Dominican Republic to see my dad and his wife. The girls are very excited for some pool time with Grandpa (mom and dad think December is WAY too cold for swimming pools, but the kids don't, and Grandpa is coming from snow...so hopefully he won't, either :)

Tonight is our team Christmas dinner, because by the time we get back, the Heckmans will be gone, spending Christmas and New Year's in New Jersey.

The girls want to make gingerbread houses, sleep by the Christmas tree, make ornaments, bake cookies, act out the Christmas story with costumes and NOT do school work...so we'll have plenty of time when we get back for all that before Christmas.

The guys did NOT get their visas.  Again.  I'm still not at a great place about it, so we're gonna have to talk abut that more later, but for now I am saddened for a need not being met, frustrated for a people we love who often feel like "calling and dreams and visions" are things for other nationalities, but not for Haiti, I am sad for the men and women around us who we will continue to encourage and tell them they CAN, when all the ducks are in the row and then some, and they CAN'T.

Both Jerry and Jean William were immediately confident that God has a plan, and that He redeems and works and can, and that that is sufficient.  So.

They are right, of course.  Always humbling me and silencing my buts.

Nobody's dreams are dashed on our God, are they.  So I guess I can put it all on Him and trust Him with how things seem or feel or are, trust Him with our His young men and women in Haiti, trust Him with their hearts and lives and callings.  Trust Him with refugees in Italy, trust Him to make a way, trust Him to pursue and provide.

Thank you for helping and praying and being a part of the journey for Jerry and Jean-William, for so many other young men and women here at EBS, a journey which is NOT over, which is staked deeply on God, and therefore WILL blossom, WILL beautiful, WILL be used by Him and will be for His glory.

My prayers and my praises, always rolling into one, because of who He is.

so we trust.

Next post from the other side of the island...