WOW, our house sold in THREE DAYS!! We had a showing the first day it was on the market, and that person made an offer that was too low. Then we had a showing the third day it was on the market, and the offer was good! YAY! We met the couple yesterday, and they were so sweet and excited about their house. Funny story: there was a BAT hanging from the peak of our roof when the buyers arrived. They came in the house and said, "Um, did you know there's a bat hanging from the side of the house?" Nice. Justin went out and bothered it a little, but not enough to wake it up...no, the true wake up call waited until night when we had some friends over. All the guys went outside to throw sticks near the bat to wake it up...but I digress. The buyers wanted to measure for some furniture, and it was fun to watch the wheels turning in the girl's head as she planned out their future home.
It's hard to think of leaving our first home, and a good cry will be in order the day we hand over the keys, but this frees us up to leave whenever our support is finally raised. This would be easier if we were at 100% of our need for the mission field, that way we would have a solid departure date and a place to go, but this works too. We're now trying to work out a deal to rent our home until July 15th, but if that doesn't go through, we'll have to find other arrangements. We have a couple of options, so we're not worried about it. We're just praying for the best possible arrangement to keep from uprooting the boys too much. ...ah yes, the boys.
It occurred to me that we haven't mentioned the boys a whole lot in our blogs or newsletters. Part of it is intentional: people want to hear about how the ministry is progressing and our news about the boys is simply off the subject. But the other part is unintentional, because we could tell you more about them here in our blog. Alex is fully aware of leaving for Peru, and he's somewhat understanding that we are offering people a chance to help us in this ministry. He'll ask us, "Do we have enough money to move to Peru yet?" And when we told the boys about selling the house, Alex asked, "So are we moving to Peru now!!" We told him he would have to wait a little while longer for that. He's excited about the prospect of a new place to live and going to school, but he had a moment last week when he realized that he was going to miss our friends and family, especially his grandparents. It was during the day, so Justin was at work, so Alex and I shed a few tears together when we talked about the things we would miss, the ways we would keep in touch, and the special things we would need to take with us to make us feel comfortable.
Nathan, being just three years old and a second child, is a little less aware of the specific changes that are about to happen. He keeps hearing about Peru, and he'll mention his desires: Alex wants a dog, and Nathan wants a turtle, neither of which we have any idea if we can have in a rented Peruvian apartment. We've read some books about moving, but we haven't found a book about moving to another COUNTRY yet...so we have to skip over the pages when they talk about bringing ALL of the kids' belongings with them to their new houses. Nathan's also starting to get into the Spanish thing - FINALLY. We had to cut back on Spanish to get him speaking English well. Now that he's effectively communicating, we're back to the Spanish, and he's enjoying it. I think the transition will be easier for him than for Alex...we'll see. Our great debate is whether to start him in pre-school right away when we get there. He may need the extra boost, so we're going to go ahead and sign him up, reserving the right to change our minds if he's socially not ready yet.
The boys are our #1 priority in all of this, so we chose a school for them that we think will make the transition a little easier. It's an international school that came recommended by some other missionaries in Lima, Peru. We can't get down there and look for schools right now, but Alex will need to start as soon as we get down there, so we thought this sounded like a good option. They teach in English, but offer Spanish courses, and they have a significant discount for missionaries. It's a bunch of other international kids, so the boys will be around kids like them. We're still in debate about whether we need to find a Peruvian school for them to really get into the culture where we live, but we will have to wait to search those out when we get there. The school issue has been HUGE for us, so please help us pray for God's direction and care for our boys.
So that's the latest and greatest. We've sold our house, we've chosen a school for the boys, and now we're getting geared up for a LOT OF PACKING AND SORTING!!! Busy, but worthwhile. Now we just need that last 11% :).
In Christ,
Gillian
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Think on these things...
Things are moving forward for us. We've put the works in motion to move to Peru before only to have them all halted. So what's different about this time? The support is much higher, and coming in at a pretty steady pace, making August an extremely likely departure goal. At times we're overwhelmed. It's easier when one of us is overwhelmed at a time, so at least one person is available to lift the other up. This week, though, we were overwhelmed at the same time. We had to stop...take a deep breath...and encourage each other as best we could through honesty, conversation, and God.
We're balancing a life of building a ministry team, preaching around the state, getting our stuff packed up and organized, getting the house ready for sale, regular church life, t-ball, oh yeah, and being a husband and wife/Dad and Mom, and worshipping our Holy Father. There's a poem out there that starts off saying something like, "today I was too busy to pray," and then the day goes on and it's really hard, so the last line is something like, "I'm too busy NOT to pray." That's how we're feeling. Our week started off really crazy with events every night, a realtor coming on Wednesday morning, and Justin going out of town Wednesday afternoon. Add in that I wasn't feeling very well. All the makings of a great, "Poor Me" pitty party. Believe me, I had a great big pitty party on Tuesday. That night, LATE because of our busy schedule, Justin and I worked on getting the house clean for the realtor to come the next morning. We were both overwhelmed, and we bumped our way through it, thinking that we were about to put our house on the market the very next day as Justin headed out of town.
We finally just stopped. We had a heart to heart about how crazy we were working, and seriously contemplated rescheduling the realtor meeting. Evaluating our efforts and our spirits we decided to KEEP the meeting, but QUIT breaking our backs...we had NO peace about putting it on the market on Wednesday, but we still wanted to meet with the realtor. In the morning we finished basic cleaning just minutes before the realtor came. After our meeting with her, we both felt a sense of peace and direction. Our house will go on the market in a week or so, when Justin's been home long enough to finish the few odds and ends we need to get done. Now it's Thursday, and it's GORGEOUS outside, and things are in better perspective...WE'RE HEALTHY, OUR MINISTRY IS COMING TOGETHER, WE'RE SURROUNDED BY LOVING FRIENDS AND FAMILY, WE HAVE A ROOF OVER OUR HEADS, FOOD IN OUR BELLIES, AND WE LOVE OUR KIDS, AND WE LOVE EACH OTHER! It's amazing and humbling how quickly the big picture can get lost among the clutter of details.
Just today I went out to the mailbox and found a card of encouragement from a supporting church with a few personal notes from friends inside. I have been convicted of my previous care of missionaries that we supported. I always thought they were too busy for our emails and whatnot, so I contented myself with reading their newsletters and praying for them. I now know, that they may not always have time to respond to our letters or emails, but they do need the encouragement. What a blessing words from "out there" can be, when we're too involved being "in here"- our own little world of getting ready to start a new life in full time ministry.
It's too easy to lose sight of the good stuff. In Philippians 4:6-8, NIV, God writes through Paul:
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition , with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."
There's a promise to stand on! "...And the God of peace will be with you." :) I praise God for his awesome wisdom in how to protect our minds from the things that will weigh us down needlessly and keep us from acknowledging His Goodness and Peace.
I don't know if anyone ever reads these blogs, but this one really helped me put things into prespective.
May God bless you and me with peace as we think of things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.
In Christ,
Gillian
We're balancing a life of building a ministry team, preaching around the state, getting our stuff packed up and organized, getting the house ready for sale, regular church life, t-ball, oh yeah, and being a husband and wife/Dad and Mom, and worshipping our Holy Father. There's a poem out there that starts off saying something like, "today I was too busy to pray," and then the day goes on and it's really hard, so the last line is something like, "I'm too busy NOT to pray." That's how we're feeling. Our week started off really crazy with events every night, a realtor coming on Wednesday morning, and Justin going out of town Wednesday afternoon. Add in that I wasn't feeling very well. All the makings of a great, "Poor Me" pitty party. Believe me, I had a great big pitty party on Tuesday. That night, LATE because of our busy schedule, Justin and I worked on getting the house clean for the realtor to come the next morning. We were both overwhelmed, and we bumped our way through it, thinking that we were about to put our house on the market the very next day as Justin headed out of town.
We finally just stopped. We had a heart to heart about how crazy we were working, and seriously contemplated rescheduling the realtor meeting. Evaluating our efforts and our spirits we decided to KEEP the meeting, but QUIT breaking our backs...we had NO peace about putting it on the market on Wednesday, but we still wanted to meet with the realtor. In the morning we finished basic cleaning just minutes before the realtor came. After our meeting with her, we both felt a sense of peace and direction. Our house will go on the market in a week or so, when Justin's been home long enough to finish the few odds and ends we need to get done. Now it's Thursday, and it's GORGEOUS outside, and things are in better perspective...WE'RE HEALTHY, OUR MINISTRY IS COMING TOGETHER, WE'RE SURROUNDED BY LOVING FRIENDS AND FAMILY, WE HAVE A ROOF OVER OUR HEADS, FOOD IN OUR BELLIES, AND WE LOVE OUR KIDS, AND WE LOVE EACH OTHER! It's amazing and humbling how quickly the big picture can get lost among the clutter of details.
Just today I went out to the mailbox and found a card of encouragement from a supporting church with a few personal notes from friends inside. I have been convicted of my previous care of missionaries that we supported. I always thought they were too busy for our emails and whatnot, so I contented myself with reading their newsletters and praying for them. I now know, that they may not always have time to respond to our letters or emails, but they do need the encouragement. What a blessing words from "out there" can be, when we're too involved being "in here"- our own little world of getting ready to start a new life in full time ministry.
It's too easy to lose sight of the good stuff. In Philippians 4:6-8, NIV, God writes through Paul:
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition , with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."
There's a promise to stand on! "...And the God of peace will be with you." :) I praise God for his awesome wisdom in how to protect our minds from the things that will weigh us down needlessly and keep us from acknowledging His Goodness and Peace.
I don't know if anyone ever reads these blogs, but this one really helped me put things into prespective.
May God bless you and me with peace as we think of things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.
In Christ,
Gillian
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