All in Good Time

Going on a nature walk w/ Gram

Things don’t always happen as we expect.  Sometimes you feel very in control and on top of all the things happening.  Other times things get out of hand and you feel overwhelmed.  But then there are the completely unexpected things that we have no control over.  That’s when we find ourselves relying on our Father for help and His amazing timing.   This week, we’ve been struck by the timing of recent events have given us reason to be very thankful for a Father who looks after us.

Finding houses:  We’ve already written a blog about this, but we’re still thankful:  4 houses to find before we left for vacation.  The last house found in the final days of the last week before vacation!

Our daughter with her fixed teeth

Our daughter's toothache:  At the very beginning of vacation our daughter started complaining of a toothache.  A strange thing to be thankful for, you say?  But because we were on vacation we were able to get a dentist appointment and then the follow-up to fix her teeth (which turned out to need a lot of fixing--the fillings from France weren’t done well) and get it done in a place where they could do a top quality job.  We keep thinking about what would have happened if our daughter's toothache started after we got back to the islands where there is little to no quality dental care (let alone pediatric dentists).  It could have been a real mess.

Teammates’ support:  When we left for vacation three of our teammates were still working hard to find the support teams they need in order to join in the work on the islands.  All of them had a ways to go.  A month ago the two single ladies were at 75% and 50% respectively of their needed monthly support.  The American family were at 34% of their needed support (not surprisingly necessarily since the support for a family is more than twice that of a single person).  When we went on vacation none of them had reached their goal.  So even though we were far away, and on vacation, we’ve been checking blogs and emails excitedly every day to follow their progress and asking our Father to give them a hand.  We were so happy to see our single teammates reach their goal on the very day of the deadline that had been set for them.  But we were especially excited to see our American family teammates jump to 95% of their needed support, and to see them given an extension of a couple more weeks to raise up the final support team members.

Awhile back when we started thinking about our teammates coming to join us, we started asking our Dad to have things happen in such a way that our teammates and we would know that He was guiding our steps--that all of us would know He wanted us to be here on the islands.  He has answered that request in a dramatic fashion.  When the days are tough (and there are always tough days on the island) we will be able to look back on the way things have come about and know that we are where we’re supposed to be. He picked this team and provided for it. All in good time.

Our son w/ his Gram & Grandad

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter's dental work went well and we are so thankful for the great work of the dentist who delayed going on vacation to fix our daughter's teeth.  We got to meet up with an old friend from camp while on vacation.   We’ve had a wonderful, relaxing time for vacation, enjoyed some of our favorite foods (cheese, chocolate, ice cream, bacon) and the weather has been very cooperative.  It’s been great to see Megan’s parents.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tomorrow we head back to the islands, which means a lot of travel and some long plane rides.  The kids did great on the way over,  but we realize this was another big answer to pray not to be taken lightly. Please pray the kids would do equally well on the way back and that again Megan’s back would do well with all the extra stress/sitting of travel.   Also pray for good travel in general, transfers, bags, etc. Pray for us as we hit the ground running back on the islands in preparation for our team. We come back to a long to-do list! We’re really excited that God is providing for all 3 couples and 2 singles joining our team, pray for the rest of their preparations for life on the islands. Pray for our daughter's teeth-- apparently her teeth are pre-disposed to cavities so we need to be diligent.