Three Weeks

Three weeks from today, we will be leaving our home, our city, some of our family, and many of our friends... heading to New Mexico, where we will be serving God and His people at the Jicarilla Apache Reformed Church in Dulce, NM. We are convicted that this is God's plan; we are excited to begin this new adventure; and we are finding our final three weeks getting more and more full each day!

In three weeks, we have to have everything packed, of course. I've been working on that for months, but there is still a lot of packing to do! We have trips to make, guests to greet, an ordination to have, several going-away events to participate in, and lots of good-byes that will be very difficult.

And still, we're excited. We have felt the call of this particular church community from the beginning, when I encouraged my husband to send his profile information to them, even though it was far away from everyone we know. When Brad received their profile information, we read it with growing interest and conviction. This was the kind of place God was preparing us for! And after the first interview, while we continued to pray that God's will be done, we began hoping that this was the place.

After our visit in April, when the search committee revealed that they, too, had felt led by God to us, we began to seriously consider what it would mean to live so far from most of our family, to raise our daughter as a minority in a small community, to reside 90 miles from the nearest Target store.

It won't always be easy. We know that. But it will be good. We will grow in ways we can't imagine right now. God will provide strength and insight for us and for the congregation as we learn each others' ways.

Back to packing....