Alex, Gillian, Nathan, and Justin opening presents from the Minnesota crowd :)
Monday, December 27, 2004
Merry Christmas!
Everyone in the family now knows of our plans for missions. I still have not had a chance to talk voice to voice with all of my aunts and uncles, but they've heard through the grapevine, and I will make contact this week. Of course, the family has their concerns, but so far everyone has received the news with love and support. My aunt and grandpa are even working on connecting us with some missionaries to Peru that they know.
So the family knows, and everyone is continuing to love us through this big change. We have so much to be thankful for. As we celebrated this Christmas Justin and I kept chatting over the events to come. We wonder if we will have all of our support raised at this time next year and be ready to ship out. We wonder if we'll even have another Christmas in our house. We may have to sell it early to make sure it's sold before we leave. As we put away the ornaments (we had to put up the tree already to fit a VERY oversized gift from my family in our living room...thanks guys), we wondered if we'll be taking our ornaments or starting a new collection for our family in Peru. Do Peruvians have Christmas Trees? or will we have to have a Christmas fern??
It's an exciting yet unknown time for us. We have a large box from Food for the Hungry sitting in our bedroom right now. It arrived on December 23, so we decided to put it aside and focus on Christmas. The significance of the box: it's filled with everything to get us started on our journey toward Peru. It has everything from support raising materials, to spiritual training materials, to an introduction to Peru. We've agreed to breathe until next weekend. Then we will dive in. We're putting together our office in Alex's former nursery (it's been a catch-all room for far too long). It will be decorated with a Food for the Hungry calendar and a large wall map that I bought for Justin for Christmas. It also has just enough Mary Englebreit to give it Gillian charm :)
For today, though, we're just breathing. Our boys absolutely loved Christmas this year. We officially no longer have babies in our home. Today we took down the crib. It's been up since I was pregnant with Alex, and it's been in constant use for these three years. Alex went from the crib to the bed just one night before we moved Nathan from the bassinet to the crib (they're 17 months apart). Today at nap time we kept hearing the boys giggling and we found Nathan had crawled in bed with Alex three times. Tonight I heard the boys giggling after we put them down, and I paused for a moment outside their room listening. In an instant I was zapped back to my first house on Westwood Road. I could hear my sister's vague "mmhmm" as I kept talking long after she was done listening from her bed just a foot above mine (we had a trundle). During the summer we kept a black and white tv on an old nightstand (no tv during the school year) and we'd fix tin foil for an antenae and watch "The Arsenio Hall Show" from our beds. Shoot back even farther into our past and I see our bunk beds. The mattresses were so floppy that we could squish our heads followed by our bodies beneath the rail on the top bunk and dangle from our knees. Flash back a little farther to the double bed we shared and I see the window that was so drafty that ice formed on the inside. We'd have contests to see how long we could hold our feet to the window. The ice would melt under our feet, but they'd grow numb and we'd quit, not because of the cold, but out of boredom.
I eventually went into my boys' room and found them each standing in their own beds facing each other across the room mimicking each other and giggling with their new freedom. Alex, seeing my shadow on the floor, dropped to the pillow immediately and flung the covers over his head. Nathan, still new to this game, waited till I was half-way to his bed before he too dropped. I re-tucked them in, said a stern, "Night Night," and turned for the door stifling my laugh. My mom would have been proud (she had a weakness for adorable disobedience which I inherited). I quickly ran and told Justin so we could laugh together.
So, tonight is when God has given me the peace that even though we will be in a foreign culture, we can still help create a magical childhood for our children even when the outline won't be exactly the same as our own childhoods. Where we are together as a family, we can be as magical as we make it.
Much love to you and yours this Christmas.
Gillian
So the family knows, and everyone is continuing to love us through this big change. We have so much to be thankful for. As we celebrated this Christmas Justin and I kept chatting over the events to come. We wonder if we will have all of our support raised at this time next year and be ready to ship out. We wonder if we'll even have another Christmas in our house. We may have to sell it early to make sure it's sold before we leave. As we put away the ornaments (we had to put up the tree already to fit a VERY oversized gift from my family in our living room...thanks guys), we wondered if we'll be taking our ornaments or starting a new collection for our family in Peru. Do Peruvians have Christmas Trees? or will we have to have a Christmas fern??
It's an exciting yet unknown time for us. We have a large box from Food for the Hungry sitting in our bedroom right now. It arrived on December 23, so we decided to put it aside and focus on Christmas. The significance of the box: it's filled with everything to get us started on our journey toward Peru. It has everything from support raising materials, to spiritual training materials, to an introduction to Peru. We've agreed to breathe until next weekend. Then we will dive in. We're putting together our office in Alex's former nursery (it's been a catch-all room for far too long). It will be decorated with a Food for the Hungry calendar and a large wall map that I bought for Justin for Christmas. It also has just enough Mary Englebreit to give it Gillian charm :)
For today, though, we're just breathing. Our boys absolutely loved Christmas this year. We officially no longer have babies in our home. Today we took down the crib. It's been up since I was pregnant with Alex, and it's been in constant use for these three years. Alex went from the crib to the bed just one night before we moved Nathan from the bassinet to the crib (they're 17 months apart). Today at nap time we kept hearing the boys giggling and we found Nathan had crawled in bed with Alex three times. Tonight I heard the boys giggling after we put them down, and I paused for a moment outside their room listening. In an instant I was zapped back to my first house on Westwood Road. I could hear my sister's vague "mmhmm" as I kept talking long after she was done listening from her bed just a foot above mine (we had a trundle). During the summer we kept a black and white tv on an old nightstand (no tv during the school year) and we'd fix tin foil for an antenae and watch "The Arsenio Hall Show" from our beds. Shoot back even farther into our past and I see our bunk beds. The mattresses were so floppy that we could squish our heads followed by our bodies beneath the rail on the top bunk and dangle from our knees. Flash back a little farther to the double bed we shared and I see the window that was so drafty that ice formed on the inside. We'd have contests to see how long we could hold our feet to the window. The ice would melt under our feet, but they'd grow numb and we'd quit, not because of the cold, but out of boredom.
I eventually went into my boys' room and found them each standing in their own beds facing each other across the room mimicking each other and giggling with their new freedom. Alex, seeing my shadow on the floor, dropped to the pillow immediately and flung the covers over his head. Nathan, still new to this game, waited till I was half-way to his bed before he too dropped. I re-tucked them in, said a stern, "Night Night," and turned for the door stifling my laugh. My mom would have been proud (she had a weakness for adorable disobedience which I inherited). I quickly ran and told Justin so we could laugh together.
So, tonight is when God has given me the peace that even though we will be in a foreign culture, we can still help create a magical childhood for our children even when the outline won't be exactly the same as our own childhoods. Where we are together as a family, we can be as magical as we make it.
Much love to you and yours this Christmas.
Gillian
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Telling Friends and Family
Our Christmas letter is in the mail with our web address on it. Soon many people will be visiting our site and reading about our latest endevours...namely missions. If this is new to you, please read our first journal entry at the bottom to get caught up. After a year and a half of communication with Food for the Hungry, we have prayerfully accepted a missionary position in Lima, Peru set to begin in 2006. Our friends and family have truly shown some amazing love through this process. People of all spiritual backgrounds are accepting our news with love for us, even when they don't fully understand the decision. Their support means more to me than I can express. I have truly been blessed with amazing people in my life who can just love me for who I am, and what I've been called to do with my life with my family. While our respective parents have known all along, I just told my grandfather and his wife up in Minnesota, tonight I will tell my grandparents on my father's side, and Justin has already told his grandparents. Out of respect for the extended family, we felt it was best to start with the grandparents and work our way to the aunts and uncles. Our experience living 1200 miles away from my family tells us that technology goes a long way, and we will be able to keep in touch even from Peru. But technology doesn't replace the face to face contact with loved ones, and for that we will just have to trust that love truly spans the distance. I have to go cook up some spaghetti for dinner. The journey continues...
Love,
Gillian
Love,
Gillian
Monday, December 20, 2004
Telling FPC
Well, tomorrow I am telling the staff at First Presbyterian Church about our missions candidacy. This church has played a significant role in our lives over the past several years. I have worked there for the past five years but I was introduced to the church in 1998. A lot of people don’t know the role it has had in my life. Let me sum up.
Gillian and I met while we were in college on the Friday after Labor Day 1998. Our first date was to the campus ministry, then known as 360. It is here that we began to have renewed growth in our relationship with Christ and growth in our own friendship. Gillian became friends with Mary Beth Gibbes (now Hultstrand) who was a 360 intern. At the end of the fall semester Gillian returned to Minnesota. Even after she returned to MN I would take some of Gillian’s SC friends to 360. Summer of 1999, I moved to MN to meet her family and propose. When we moved back to SC at the end of the summer Mary Beth told her about a position that was available at the Cason Group (a company owned by Louie Cason, a FPC elder). When we made it back to SC, Gillian interviewed and had a job there within a week. I found a job, but it was not a good fit. Gillian asked in staff prayer that I would quickly find a better job. Louie told her to get my resume to him and he would see what he could do. I met with Louie and the next thing I knew I was meeting LeGrand Cooper, administrator of First Presbyterian. During one of my interviews pastor Lance Hudgens asked me, “How long do you intend on working for us?” I told him that the only thing that I could think of that would cause me to leave was missions. I explained that Gillian and I both had a burden for missions in Latin America and we were waiting on God’s timing. I was hired and started in October 1999.
My hiring coincided with the beginning of Hispanic ministries at Ebenezer PHC, my home church. I began teaching Sunday School, translating services and getting involved in my guys’ lives. Gillian helped organize soccer games and outreach efforts. Over the next three years my Spanish improved greatly and our desire to serve in missions grew. During my first three years at FPC Gillian and I had many joys and trials and FPC was always encouraging in the trials and excited with us in our joy. After three and a half years at FPC I had an opportunity to go to Lima, Peru with the college ministry at First Presbyterian, now called RUF. After this trip my heart was burdened for missions. Gillian and I prayed asking God if now was the time to go. He answered, “YES”. Now, one year later we have accepted a call from Food for the Hungry to return to Lima, Peru.
It is great working for First Presbyterian. I have an environment that nurtures me in my spiritual growth and allows me to minister through technology. It is also great to have another extended family at the office. It will be difficult to tell them, but I know that they will be supportive of our obedience to God’s calling.
Gillian and I met while we were in college on the Friday after Labor Day 1998. Our first date was to the campus ministry, then known as 360. It is here that we began to have renewed growth in our relationship with Christ and growth in our own friendship. Gillian became friends with Mary Beth Gibbes (now Hultstrand) who was a 360 intern. At the end of the fall semester Gillian returned to Minnesota. Even after she returned to MN I would take some of Gillian’s SC friends to 360. Summer of 1999, I moved to MN to meet her family and propose. When we moved back to SC at the end of the summer Mary Beth told her about a position that was available at the Cason Group (a company owned by Louie Cason, a FPC elder). When we made it back to SC, Gillian interviewed and had a job there within a week. I found a job, but it was not a good fit. Gillian asked in staff prayer that I would quickly find a better job. Louie told her to get my resume to him and he would see what he could do. I met with Louie and the next thing I knew I was meeting LeGrand Cooper, administrator of First Presbyterian. During one of my interviews pastor Lance Hudgens asked me, “How long do you intend on working for us?” I told him that the only thing that I could think of that would cause me to leave was missions. I explained that Gillian and I both had a burden for missions in Latin America and we were waiting on God’s timing. I was hired and started in October 1999.
My hiring coincided with the beginning of Hispanic ministries at Ebenezer PHC, my home church. I began teaching Sunday School, translating services and getting involved in my guys’ lives. Gillian helped organize soccer games and outreach efforts. Over the next three years my Spanish improved greatly and our desire to serve in missions grew. During my first three years at FPC Gillian and I had many joys and trials and FPC was always encouraging in the trials and excited with us in our joy. After three and a half years at FPC I had an opportunity to go to Lima, Peru with the college ministry at First Presbyterian, now called RUF. After this trip my heart was burdened for missions. Gillian and I prayed asking God if now was the time to go. He answered, “YES”. Now, one year later we have accepted a call from Food for the Hungry to return to Lima, Peru.
It is great working for First Presbyterian. I have an environment that nurtures me in my spiritual growth and allows me to minister through technology. It is also great to have another extended family at the office. It will be difficult to tell them, but I know that they will be supportive of our obedience to God’s calling.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Lima Picture
Picture of Lima, Peru from May 2003. This picture was taken from one of the "pueblos jovenes", 23 de Octubre, in San Juan de Lurigancho.
First Entry: Accepting a Call to Peru
Justin is OCD'ing over this Blog thing, so I thought I'd give it a spin. I understand the need to get set up in the communications department from the get-go, but missions still seems so far off. Our every day life has not yet changed, so it's hard to focus on what's to come. Today, for instance, was totally consumed with the boyz and their stomach bug. I am thankful, however, for a husband who is able to keep his eye on the ball in the midst of the daily and Christmas hustle and bustle.
For those who don't yet know, Justin and I have accepted a missionary position in Lima, Peru beginning in January 2006. For those who know us well, this is not surprising. For those who maybe don't know our story quite so well, this will be an opportunity to get to know us better. Trust me when I say this decision has been in the making long before we even met each other. Our mutual call to the mission field is one of the strongest bonds we brought into marriage. We have now been married 4.5 years, and our two beautiful children are now past infancy. God opened some pretty incredible doors to say, "Now's the time to go."
Our children are 3yrs and 18mos, and their well being has been our top priority throughout this process. After 2yrs of age children are done with their major vaccination schedule, and only require boosters once a year until age 5. So that's more manageable than every three months. Plus, developmentally, they will be at great ages for adapting well to a foreign environment. Justin is working with them diligently on their Spanish. I'd like to say I was more of a help, but at my current ability I can simply maintain what he's taught and leave the new lessons to him. I think our oldest knows more Spanish animal names than I do :).
After trying out different avenues for serving, including other organizations and our own denomination, Food for the Hungry became our #1 organization of choice. Justin went on a short term trip to Lima, Peru with them in 2003 (the week I went into preterm labor with Nathan back at home :), and I went on a short term trip with FH to Bolivia this past July. We both asked MANY questions while we were on our trips, and we both had the same feeling when we came home..."I am a traitor for leaving these people when I know I have a role here." We attended an orientation to the organization in AZ the week before Thanksgiving and we PRAYERFULLY accepted our position last week. It's right up our alley...God truly tailored this position for us. Justin will be an assistant in the Spiritual Development Program. He'll be working with the community churches to strengthen them and the communities. I'll back him up in all he does from the homefront. In addition to holding down the fort, I will help Justin put together spiritual retreats for the other international staff along with some other spiritual staff development stuff. BUT...before we get there, much must happen on the homefront. Including packing/selling/or giving away our things and support raising.
Raising the financial support has become secondary to raising the prayer and emotional support team necessary for the success of this ministry, and through that prayer and emotional support, and the grace of God, the funds will come. We have a life back here that needs to be put into boxes and stored, as well as needs in the mission field that will require help from the people back at home. God has TRULY blessed us with many people who want to be part of this ministry, and we know that God has put us on this path for a reason. So many people have come out of the woodwork to tell us they're praying for us or even demanding that we tell them what they can do to help. This has all been very humbling to be part of such a lovely joining of people.
I must go now, it's time to put the boys down for the night, but I have to say I like this Blog thing. Now I know that people in our lives will have a place to come get an insiders look at this process, and hopefully come away with a deeper understanding of our hearts for the Lord and for the poor. Many blessings to you and yours!
In <><,
Gillian
For those who don't yet know, Justin and I have accepted a missionary position in Lima, Peru beginning in January 2006. For those who know us well, this is not surprising. For those who maybe don't know our story quite so well, this will be an opportunity to get to know us better. Trust me when I say this decision has been in the making long before we even met each other. Our mutual call to the mission field is one of the strongest bonds we brought into marriage. We have now been married 4.5 years, and our two beautiful children are now past infancy. God opened some pretty incredible doors to say, "Now's the time to go."
Our children are 3yrs and 18mos, and their well being has been our top priority throughout this process. After 2yrs of age children are done with their major vaccination schedule, and only require boosters once a year until age 5. So that's more manageable than every three months. Plus, developmentally, they will be at great ages for adapting well to a foreign environment. Justin is working with them diligently on their Spanish. I'd like to say I was more of a help, but at my current ability I can simply maintain what he's taught and leave the new lessons to him. I think our oldest knows more Spanish animal names than I do :).
After trying out different avenues for serving, including other organizations and our own denomination, Food for the Hungry became our #1 organization of choice. Justin went on a short term trip to Lima, Peru with them in 2003 (the week I went into preterm labor with Nathan back at home :), and I went on a short term trip with FH to Bolivia this past July. We both asked MANY questions while we were on our trips, and we both had the same feeling when we came home..."I am a traitor for leaving these people when I know I have a role here." We attended an orientation to the organization in AZ the week before Thanksgiving and we PRAYERFULLY accepted our position last week. It's right up our alley...God truly tailored this position for us. Justin will be an assistant in the Spiritual Development Program. He'll be working with the community churches to strengthen them and the communities. I'll back him up in all he does from the homefront. In addition to holding down the fort, I will help Justin put together spiritual retreats for the other international staff along with some other spiritual staff development stuff. BUT...before we get there, much must happen on the homefront. Including packing/selling/or giving away our things and support raising.
Raising the financial support has become secondary to raising the prayer and emotional support team necessary for the success of this ministry, and through that prayer and emotional support, and the grace of God, the funds will come. We have a life back here that needs to be put into boxes and stored, as well as needs in the mission field that will require help from the people back at home. God has TRULY blessed us with many people who want to be part of this ministry, and we know that God has put us on this path for a reason. So many people have come out of the woodwork to tell us they're praying for us or even demanding that we tell them what they can do to help. This has all been very humbling to be part of such a lovely joining of people.
I must go now, it's time to put the boys down for the night, but I have to say I like this Blog thing. Now I know that people in our lives will have a place to come get an insiders look at this process, and hopefully come away with a deeper understanding of our hearts for the Lord and for the poor. Many blessings to you and yours!
In <><,
Gillian
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