Too Long we've been silent

More than a month since our last post, wow - not for lack of activity. We have found our schedules rapidly increasing and our need for "down time" gets considerably less deserved attention each week. Fortunately, we have a long anticipated break beginning next weekend - a cross-country mini-van journey through the Badlands of South Dakota and onward toward exciting Douglas Wyoming (family owned property) and, most importantly, the Grand Tetons on the western edge of Wyoming. We have about 13 days in a row with just our family. We're excited!!! So even though our kitchen is torn apart because of a "minor" remodel and our bathroom has been unusable for a couple of days, we know there is relief in sight. Actually our inconveniences our quite mild and all the work should be finished prior to leaving this week. We had some long overdue work required on our house in order to get it into condition for our renters to arrive (middle of August). We're almost done.

We're entering an odd period of time with our team where we will not be together as an entire team (due to summer vacations, work schedules, etc) until the beginning of September. That is when we plan to leave. As our leave date nears, our hearts are increasingly filled with excitement - just sheer excitement. God has drawn near and His enduring and faithful love has not ceased to stir and focus us on toward His goal and call. Partly we've been preparing now almost 18months, but in part it's been the good favor of the Lord to reassure our hearts and align our desires with His. Despite all we're "losing" in moving away, our divine intensity is drawn from all that we'll gain. At the top of the blog is one of my favorite verses, as well of the late Jim Elliot's (one of my personal heroes). There is a promise of Life, true life, when we abandon all for our Lord. For us, the gain, the fruit, is embedding our lives more fully to our creator's and humbly accepting the privilege to serve him. As we all continually ask ourselves "what does God want with our life", I pray that we're not led astray to compromise or take short-cuts or fail to fully bow at the Cross in living an abandoned life to Jesus. Lord give us mercy to endure.

ReCovErIng...

I've been in an oxycotton and vicodin induced haze for the past 48 hours. No, not just for fun, but because I underwent a surgery on Tuesday with a nasty name I'll leave up to the imagination, in and around my colon area. To say the least, it's been painful. Praise God that I got around a potential emergency room visit b/c my bladder almost exploded (so says my doctor) due to inability to urinate. Overall, I would have to unreservedly say I will never ever do this again...I've heard stories of folks needing to repeat this procedure up to three more times - OUCH. My prayer is that the symptoms this surgery is supposed to alleviate will not follow me to Tanzania. It's sort of a "suffer now, and not later" theory - at least here there are such things as doctors-on-call and emergency rooms (though there might be something similar there, not sure though).
Aside from the agonizing last 2 days, Melissa and I continue to move forward with plans. We also continue to have the grace to experience growing excitement, especially with the Lyatuus already there. This past weekend we cleaned out a bunch of "crap" from our basement and it was a strange bitter-sweet experience which helped to solidify that our life here in Columbus is irrevocably changing, and it reminded us that, honestly, we feel it has been really good here so far and we love the life we've built. We've both completed school, started our families, seen God move over and over in our friends' lives, and really believe God's favor has been on us and our lives here...but once we got through the "cleansing" tasks the Lord used those little things to help focus and hone-in our desires and enabled us to embrace a little further the life decisions we're making in Him. He will continue to sustain us and provide for us, and it reminded us that ultimately our lives are not our own. "Use us Lord" was our prayer for the past 6 years, "send us" was our cry - and He saw fit to do so. It's awesome and scary at the same time, to fall into the hands of the living God. Most of the time we live with the perspective that we're somehow running our life. We're somehow in control. Once we loosen our grip just a little, we quickly will realize who is truly driving. It's not us. If we can hold onto that reality, there is no way God will disappoint. God works out everything for our good, and our trust needs to remain in Him and not our strengths or our plans.
Prayers: please pray for a quick recovery from this surgery, it can take up to 2-4 weeks, but I would love to be functioning again next week (god is powerful). Also, we have some financial matters to complete and certain long-term planning that we really want God's wisdom to work through. Also, we sent in all our passport applications, and we would really like those returned without any "hiccups". Only 18 more weeks, so please cover our family and team in prayer as we finish this preparation time. Peace my friends!

Hard Times In Dar

Hello Friends - I wanted to make a plea for prayer for our team leaders Edmond and Dorothy Lyatuu. They arrived in Tanzania on Monday and have been met with nothing but difficulty and pain. Dorothy's father passed away from a routine surgery on Wednesday and Edmond's sister gave birth to a still born that same day. On top of that they have felt discouraged all week that they won't be able to find a house and some costs, such as cell phones (no land lines available), are more expensive than they expected. Please pray for their family as they settle in and readjust to their community. Also, pray that they find reservoirs of God's grace in the mundane and comfort in their loss. Our team's heart goes out to them and plead for God's protection over their lives.
Thank you for sharing this burden ~ peace.