When love becomes the main and truest motivation for taking a leap of faith, one becomes willing to take the longest and most stretching of journeys. But when God does some incredible "behind the scenes works and miracles that only HE could have arranged, you know that he is directly saying "GO!" He doesn't want you to worry about HOW. God simply wants you in the smoke of chaos and "not-knowing" to simply take the journey. And so in the handful of days before leaving, we, in the matter of hours, began booking plane tickets and working with our agency, ATWA, to book hotels and needed appointments on a feeling that we should simply GO. In the week that transpired before leaving and in in the earliest days of this journey, God has stretched us, taking us to a point where we had to be certain we knew WHY we were GOING. Faith, in its most brutal and straightforward of requirements, will insist that we truly rely on it as much as we say we say we do. Prior to leaving, every worry and concern imaginable began to pop up. Both Amber and I, especially me being the worrier that I am, found ourselves challenged in that brought a lot of tension going into our departure. Of the most concerining, Amber's mom, Sandy, had some serious health concerns abruptly occur. In a week's time, Sandy had been admitted to a local hospital twice and eventually transferred to a more in intensive hospital in Detroit. On a much less critical level, our new departure dates meant that Quarter 1 grades had to be done a week early, our second dramatic performance (with costumes and contracts to be finalized along with setting up rehearsals to be run run by my dear friends Lisa Copley, Curtis Clark, and my drama president Aydrea Westrick ), and over two weeks of lesson planning had to be done in less than a week's time. Add in maintaining our family and going to school choir and band events and finalizing arrangments for our kids, and we found ourselves extremely stressed out. On the Saturday before we left, in the midst of Halloween parties and prepping to go, our family had a literal meltdown. It was bad, with tears and words that only reflected how stressed we had become. In the fog of that week, I squinted to see if my faith faith was still there. It was. On Thursday, November 3, 2016, both love and beaten faith put us on a plane to travel 6,672 miles from our home and and family. While we went from the comforts of a fully English speaking, "food that we recognize and are confident in eating home, " where we we are awake and asleep during Eastern Standard Time hours, there was definitely some culture shock. Sleep deprived, not understanding the words and culture around us, we feel very much like strangers lost in an unknown land. But God resurrects and resuscitates our b but God resurrects and resuscitates are broken and fleeting faith by shinin
2 Comments
Mary Pettinger
11/6/2016 06:04:08 pm
We love you guys and look forward to hearing how this journey ends
Reply
Renae
11/7/2016 02:14:18 am
Love your honesty ❤️ Love your family❤️ Love your LOVE ❤️ The Lord and all of you have this❤️
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
"Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the EAST and gather you from the west" Archives
March 2017
Categories |