An exhausting week….with an exhilarating end!
This week started out really rough for us. We were already exhausted heading into it after a very busy previous weekend. Then we got the news that our World Help Children of the World boys were back in town for a concert, and needed a place to stay. Of course, we jumped at the chance to have our boys staying with us again, but that led to some very long days. We picked up our boys on Tuesday after work, but since I had already made a prior appointment for that evening, we had to rush home so I could make dinner and then rush off to my appointment. Brandon was wonderful and played Legos with the boys while I was gone. The next morning was kind of crazy…perhaps all mornings are crazy when you have two 9-year-old boys? Maybe you moms out there can relate. But we did get to see our boys in concert that night, which is always a blessing. On a side note, if the Children of the World visit any churches close to you, I would highly recommend that you go to their concert….and tell Dan and Ashish that Uncle Brandon and Auntie Heather say hello! 🙂 Thursday night Brandon had the responsibility of watching our boys again, because I had my Apples of Gold group (I’ll post more about that later…it’s a whole story of its own!)….but I came home around 9:45 only to discover that our dog had eaten one of our boys’ shoes….So then I proceeded to make a late-night Walmart run! Unfortunately, it was a flip-flop that had been eaten, and seeing as summer is officially over, Walmart was very low on their stock of flip-flops. After 30 minutes of searching, I finally found a pair that was the correct size and somewhat resembled the eaten shoe. The small success boosted my mood. Friday brought about another crazy morning, and emotional goodbyes as we dropped our boys off for the last time. By the end of a long day at work, we were ready to come home, crash, and do nothing all weekend….but that was not an option for us. We had made a commitment to attend a CrossWorld New Teams retreat all weekend, starting as soon as we got off work on Friday. To be honest, neither of us were really looking forward to this retreat, but we knew that we needed to follow through on our commitment. Little did we know, this retreat was exactly what we needed. The purpose of the retreat was to promote a new idea that the CrossWorld mission agency has developed. One of the biggest challenges on the mission field today is team relationships. You are thrown into a new culture, new surroundings, a new language, a new home, and on top of that you find yourself suddenly relying on a group of people you barely know, and tensions start to run high. But what if you developed a team here in the States? What if you planned your ministry together, starting bonding with your team here, and then went out to face the challenges of a new country together? How much more effective could we be? That was what this weekend was all about. CrossWorld has 3 ministry locations set up, and the majority of the weekend was spent sharing the vision for those 3 groups, and giving us time to interact with potential teammates, as well as with CrossWorld missionaries and mobilizers. We prayerfully considered the 3 locations, and asked the Lord to make us open to joining one of those teams. However, we truly believe that he has another plan for us. And we met another guy there who felt the same way. We spoke with the CrossWorld staff about the possibility of starting a new ministry among an unreached, unengaged people group in Africa…specifically in southern Sudan! My heart is overjoyed at the possibility. Logistically, there is a lot that goes into opening up a new ministry location, but the staff seems very optimistic about it, and a small team has already begun to form. Please be in prayer with us as we await to hear further news from CrossWorld about this opportunity. One thing we really took away from this weekend was that CrossWorld is definitely an agency that we could see ourselves serving with full-time. They truly have an amazing infrastructure and philosophy of missions. We also ask that you would pray for us as we pursue a more committed relationship with the agency, and as we seek to develop a team while we are here. This weekend was nothing but encouraging, and has left us with so many open doors. Pray that we walk through the right one. The future is bright, and we are so excited about the journey along the way.