Thank you, Calvary Baptist Church, for very literally equipping our feet to go share the gospel in Mozambique.

Because of your dear hearts blessing ours, we are one step closer to the work He has for us.
Thank you again for your willingness to love on us very practically.

– To God Be the Glory!

– 33 days until orientation.

– 7 days until we crate for Africa.

This morning we just needed a quiet morning.

No more packing.

No more preparing.

A morning of our feet in the bean bin, wiggling our toes as they are covered like sand.

A morning of playing with magnet dolls; doesn’t Belle look beautiful in this fancy dress?

Time to draw yet another picture, carefully crafting the stick figures into perfection.

And the little library had to be set up, categorizing each book by subject because my kids are awesome and adore books. And need to read books. So many beautiful pictures to comment on. The familiar words. The snuggling close.

Then of course the toddler had to slide with her library selection. ‘Dewey the library cat’ tumbled down in her squealing arms.

A quiet morning of puzzles, the oldest nurturing the little middle, as seven year old smiles guided the three year old learning curve. Tenderness. Patience. Quiet love. And at last Cinderella’s ball gown was complete.

Jumping on the trampoline while watching the breeze in the trees out the window. And popping those awesome bubble wrap delights, even riding the scooter over them! How many different ways can we hear those joyful pops?

It was enough.

It was needed.

A quiet before the day picks up; visiting with the cousins, a busy dinner and then running out the door to another VBS night.

How we drank in the morning’s quiet.

How we breathed in the time.

Time to sit.

And be.

Together.

-Thankful, grateful and beyond blessed by our Lord.

It’s official. Today marks our last month at the church. Today marks our last month with a permanent US address. Today marks the last month with our Stateside furniture. That’s right, friends, it’s coming fast.

53 days (8 weeks) until orientation. 

25 days (4 weeks) left at the church. 

27 days until we crate our household contents for Mozambique. 

It all comes with a flood of emotions, thrills and griefs. 

But it sure is coming. 

#preparingforcheckmate

Just a quick update:

Tomorrow morning we have our crate estimate before our last 30 days of Mozambique packing. We’re still collecting items and preparing for crate day so the countdown is definitely on! And while crating is stressful, I’m thankful for the combined OCD tendencies with my packing professional mom. We WILL overcome you, Mr. Customs requirements. 😉

Plus, packing suitcases has begun! (Cat is not included.) Time to play an intense game of Tetris as we aim to cram everything into 12 or so suitcases that fit within the weight limitations. And as if that’s not pressure enough, there’s the looming challenge of preparing for the next up to 18 months of language school in which we will be living out of these suitcases and some mystery furniture that we will discover once we get on Moz soil. No worries, we’re not nervous about living accommodations, just rising to the challenge of clothing and entertaining our crew until we see our crated items again sometime in 2018.

Homeschool is all packed away and we are beginning our six weeks of summer school before vacationing and then orientation. It’s so crazy to completely pack up everything, knowing we won’t see it for more than a year!

The countdown chain, which once spanned the entire kitchen wall, is dwindling down to a mere 62 days (9 WEEKS, PEOPLE!) before we leave for orientation and 5 short weeks before we say goodbye to our church family.

We have been blessed to present up to date at two churches and one association all meeting about God calling our family to Mozambique and we are thankful for the desired partnership from some other dear brothers and sisters in Christ in the area. We look forward to getting to share with a handful of more churches before orientation.

So we’re off to the races into the busy season filled with goodbyes and many wonderful joys.

If I don’t update too much in the next 62 days it’s because we are:

1. Crating for Moz
2. Packing our suitcases
3. Doing VBS
4. Going on a church missions trip as a family to Missouri
5. Going to Disney World
6. Going to visit my sis and Nayt in Minnesota
7. Attending three weddings (Matt’s cousin, friends, and Matt’s youngest sister, Sarah)
8. And making some last memories for a while with dear friends and family

Yep, it’s jam packed but we are crazy thankful and blessed.

God is Good.

All the time.

And ALL the time

God IS Good!

Goodbye cold and cool weather clothing for a very, very long time.

(Celebrates)

– 12 weeks til orientation!

With the beginning of the distribution of our prayer cards and the upcoming move to Mozambique, we have decided as a family that our best communication methods on the field will be through this blog and through an email prayer list.

For the sake of bringing you all with us on this adventure,  I have made a few changes to the blog to hopefully allow for more ease in navigation and just freshen it up a little. I am still going to be the primary writer on this blog (cause, people it’s my hobby and I really enjoy it), but occasionally Matt may pop on to add a little extra flare. 😉

Matt will be running the email prayer list account. To get on the email prayer list, please feel free to email us at the address on our prayer cards if you are unable to fill out one of our information cards. (Don’t panic if you haven’t gotten a prayer card yet, it’s not personal 😉 We’re just beginning to distribute them and will do our best to get them to you soon). We will begin sending out regular prayer updates and news bulletins through the email address only. These updates will not begin until we have moved to Virginia in late July 2016 and will only become more regular in nature once we move overseas in October 2016. We will explain more in our welcome letter that we will distribute to those joining the email prayer list.

This blog, on the other hand, will be a more of a daily snippets from our world. I will continue to update this blog throughout our journey through packing up, saying goodbyes, vacation fun, moving to Virginia for orientation for 8.5 weeks, and moving to overseas to Mozambique.

Clear as mud? 😉

So now you are in the know-how and hopefully you will (continue) to enjoy this blog and our email prayer list as we begin to put our feet to the ground in these last few months.

I can’t say this enough… THANK YOU for journeying with us to the very ends of the earth.