Mission Accomplished

This is what I feel the Lord telling me these days.  It is a weird place to be...the transition.  But I feel like He has been telling me thank you for doing what I sent you here to do.

Seven years ago tomorrow, we got up in freezing cold temps, with two kids throwing up, a dog in a carrier, an active preschooler and seven suitcases and many carry-ons and headed to the airport before dawn.  Just a few hours later, we landed in Belize City.  We were already weary, but thankfully were greeted by missionary friends who just loved on us and welcomed us into this new, very hot life that God has called us to.  We spent the first night with them and it was a friendship that we really treasured over the years.

Even that first day, we felt the beginning of the spiritual battles that we would endure over the years.  Our poor kids.  But we survived and only were made stronger through each experience.

The next day, we came and moved into a hotel for seven days.  We went and ate lunch at a restaurant of a couple that would become one of our first families in the church.  I just met with her yesterday and she shared how they look to us as parents and how much they will miss us.  God called us to be spiritual mom and dads to the Belizean people.   To teach them what healthy, real, godly families look like.  And we have many sons and daughters now here in Belize.  So many young women that I love like a daughter.  Lee has so many sons.  So many marriages that we have walked through hard times with and seen them come out victorious.  I think we have also taught what a healthy church should look like.

Today, Lee posted the newest picture of the new building.  It is still a little surreal.  For so long, we worked and worked on raising funds for the building.  For so long, we prayed to be in the new building.  Now, it is all happening.  Lee and Kudzai are overwhelmingly busy as things are moving at the building and pastoring the church.  But I am so thankful we are still here for this part.  That we get to see the dream come to completion.  To see what God asked us to do, come about.  It is the most beautiful thing.

Coming and leaving.  It is always such a long process.  Today, I looked at an apartment for our final months here.  I am not sure if we will get that one.  But the landlord is who we had for a month seven years ago.  She remembered us well.  She couldn't believe how big Erika is.  As we sell all of our things, figure out what to ship home, there are just so many details to deal with.  Yet, I feel peaceful in the midst of it all.  I feel God's arms around me in a deeper way than I have in a while.  Just a sweet contentment in the season we are in.

I want us to leave in a healthy way.  And I feel that we are.  I feel that God has been in every step of the transition.  I feel that the people at LifeNet are at peace, as well.  There has just been such a sweet presence of the Lord in our services lately.  The set up of our current sanctuary is intimate.  Something that was lacking at George Price.  I am thankful that we had someplace to rent all of those years, but there is something about worshiping in your own home.  Being able to set the atmosphere.  Not the sterility of a rented facility.

God is so amazing.  I am so grateful to Him for the way He has been just so faithful to Lee and I all of these years.  How He is faithful to Josh and Tori at their college.  Tori calls me all the time and just tells me how thankful she is for where she is at.  I love that she wants to share what she is learning in class or at chapel.  God knew that SAGU would be the perfect place for our kids to land after years on the mission field. 

Please continue to pray for LifeNet, that they will go to the next level without us!

Please pray for our family, as we don't know what is next.  We pray that soon we will have some direction.  Pray as we integrate our children into a very different culture over the next year.  We are excited to see where God will use us next.