So, this summer has just flown by!! Isaiah and Thea start school next Tuesday. Unreal. We have been gone for almost the whole summer between our furlough to the States and our annual Staff Conference with CAI in Hungary. Both were incredible experiences for our family. It has been an amazing summer, but we don't want to travel anymore for a while :) Poor Thea was so confused. Everywhere we were travelling this summer she kept asking "Are we in America yet?". God has refreshed us and encouraged us in so many ways. It was so good to be with friends and family in the States. We just wish we had more time. There were so many people we still didn't get to see or have quality time with. We ate lots of Mexican food and enjoyed reconnecting with people. So many people encouraged us in different ways from sharing scriptures with us, to praying for us, to providing a wonderful place for us to stay and a car to drive. We felt so loved. Samantha and I counted up that we shared a "formal" update in a group setting like church, a dessert etc. about our life and ministry in France on 16 occasions in 20 days!! Through all of those times of sharing we were able to gain perspective on what we went through in our first two years here and also look forward with anticipation to the future. God actually used our sharing as a chance to help us process and heal from some of the difficult things we went through this past year. We were also able to reflect on the many good things that God did with us here these past two years.
We are so excited about this next chapter in our lives as a family and also in the ministry here. We hope to see a network of missional communities seeking to live in the way of Jesus established here. We look forward to getting to know our teammates even better this fall and working closely together. Without being super long winded because there is so much to catch up on I will share a verse that was given to us by one of our former students, Jackie. She was praying for us one evening while she was watching our kiddos and sensed God speaking to us directly through this verse:
Isaiah 43:18-19"But forget all that - it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do a brand-new thing. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness for my people to come home. I will create rivers for them in the desert!"
Our team: Renee, Nicole & Vincent, and Samantha and I
Closing thoughts:
Isaiah has learned how to ride his bike without his training wheels
Thea has been painting and finding even more ways to be creative
Silas is into everything right now- we had to baby-proof our house to a whole new level this past week
It's amazing how fast you can fall out of shape. I feel like I am starting all over after two months of travel and not many opportunities to be active. It's good to be back on the bike. I had two old men pass me yesterday! I hope I am as fit as them when I am their age. I loved their competitiveness. They both had to catch me and beat me to the summit.
Samantha and I agree now that are house is too small for our family and for the ministry. We are praying about our options of finding a bigger place.
We just had an awesome couple days with Linus and Sharon Morris, Phil and Laina Graf, and the Perrimans. It was good to spend time together and learn from each other.
