With great excitement and a dash of trepidation, we clicked “process payment,” purchasing one-way tickets to Lima, Peru a few weeks ago. We leave on August 11, twenty-one days from today. This means that we have reached key financial milestones such that our sending agency has given us a green light to move forward! While a few financial uncertainties remain, we find ourselves in a solid spot!
A flurry of activity enveloped the past 40 days since our last post. I turned 38. We enjoyed a fun and meaningful reunion with our extended family on my mother’s side. Isaia celebrated his 8th birthday with a sports-filled party with friends and family. We said a tearful goodbye to our rodent-eliminating, fetch-playing, sweet cat, Killari, leaving her at her new home—a friend of Ilana. We bid farewell to my brother, landlord, and neighbor of the past two years as he and his family moved across the country—we will be forever grateful for the gift of living close to them during this season. Aila had three swim meets and did an exceptional job breaking multiple personal records. We boxed up, threw away, or donated all but a couple suitcases of belongings for each of us. We moved out of our home and in with family.
We find ourselves in the “homeless” phase of our transition. While true-ish, we really are far from homeless. God has blessed us immensely with parents, siblings, and friends that have supported us in countless ways. We have the privilege of living as guests of those we hold dear until we depart. God is good!
In Psalm 90, the pray-er says,
1 My Lord, you have been a safe place for us
From generation to generation
2 Before the mountains were born
Or you birthed the earth and world
From ever and to ever you are God
We have experienced God as a safe place during this time of transition. The past three weeks, I preached at three different supporting churches. At each church, we found kindred spirits, people who so believe in the mission that God has for us that they willingly give sacrificially to support us in this work. Your support, encouragement, and care for us are a tangible expression of God’s love.
These final twenty-one days will be full of emotion. We pray the psalmist’s prayer. May God’s love so satisfy us and those to whom we say goodbye that tears of sadness would express a deep joy—not the joy of separation but a joyful thankfulness for the times of fun and happiness that we shared and for the bonds that stand strong despite distance.
May we sense the Lord’s favor on us as we go and as our friends and family stay here. Even though our lives are short, and we are relatively insignificant in the big scope of things, may our work mean something in the kingdom of God. May God use our efforts for the glory of Jesus!
90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your love,
That we might sing and rejoice in all of our days!
90:17 May the favor of the Lord our God be on us
May the work of your hands be established on us
May the work of your hands, be established it.
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