It's been a crazy couple of days since our commissioning at One Mission Society headquarters last Friday. I didn't get any pictures of the actual service, but here's a group shot of our fellow missionaries (and now dear friends) from our three weeks in Greenwood, Indiana:
We were blessed to have my mother, Kris (one of Melissa's former co-workers) and Kate and Storly (just back from a summer spent in Haiti) in attendance for our commissioning. It was a great and meaningful service, and if I had more energy, I would tell you more about it. There were plenty of hugs and goodbyes to go around after the service - and then everyone rushed off to the four corners of the globe!
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| The kids had their own commissioning service - and their own share of goodbyes. |
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| Melissa is going to miss her new Kiwi friend, Carolyn. I've always wanted to visit New Zealand, and now I would gladly go there just to visit Carolyn and Chuni - assuming they were back from the mission field at the time... |
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| Sarah and a couple of her new friends - who are now safely in Spain - Photobombed by Phil Heckman! Real mature, Phil. ;-) |
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| Upon returning home, Melissa got to work on having the kids write up lists of things they'd like to do/people they'd like to see before we leave. Pizza from Mancino's was on the top of Samuel's list. Grandma Trudy joined us. |
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| Sunday morning I had the chance to share at my home church, Shelbyville First United Methodist. My sermon went long, but that didn't stop the congregation from giving us a very warm, gracious and supportive welcome! Service was followed by a great lunch at my brother Russ' house. |
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| Sunday evening was the second of Kate Michel's two birthday parties we got to enjoy. Storly got into the party spirit! |
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| The kids couldn't wait for cake and ice cream! |
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| And then last night we were blessed to be a part of the opening of VBS at West Morris Street Free Methodist Church in Indy. They have decided to make our kids the focus of their VBS mission giving; they hope to raise enough money to buy bikes for our kids once we arrive in Haiti. So sweet! And so much fun to be a part of the evening's festivities. I don't think I have ever been a part of a church that loved its neighborhood more than WEMO does. |
Coming up: The packing continues and we continue to whittle away at the To Do list. I weighed what we have already packed and we are at 2,000 pounds! BUT 1,500 lbs of that total is school supplies. We have reserved 3,000 lbs on the flight from Fort Pierce, Florida. Our flight is Tuesday, August 13th, but part of what I am trying to work out this week is a plan to get our family down to Florida a few days early to enjoy a bit of stress-free transition time as a family. It should be quite a challenge, considering our extremely limited budget! But if we can swing it, we'd like to pull out of Indiana a week from tomorrow. Time is flying.
Tomorrow the house gets listed again in the local paper as a rental at a new, lower price - a bit lower than we can technically afford, in fact! We hope to get some phone calls and get this situation settled. We continue to pray for God's guidance and provision and we thank all of you who have been praying about this on our behalf. We'll keep you posted!
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