It's gonna be a BUSY one!!!

Whew!! These next 6 days are going to be jam packed for our family.

Tomorrow morning we are loading up the vans with teens and heading to our hometown area.

The morning will consist of me dropping River and Laike off at Grandma’s for the weekend and then joining back up with the youth group, for a fun filled afternoon soaking up the sun on the river. We will take a 3 hour tubing trip down the Muskegon River.  We will be doing many other things Friday night and Saturday morning.

Once Saturday rolls around the teens will be riding back with Chad and Rachel and Rodney and I will stay up north to take that time to visit with our families and say our goodbyes before we head out to North Carolina.

Be praying for us, as it is going to be a very emotional 6 days.

Sunday we will be spending the day on Lake Michigan. We will be part of witnessing a baptism of a fellow co worker that Rodney use to work with 7 years ago, that recently came to Christ. That will be a joyful celebration and we look forward to that.

Then the rest of the week is busy with traveling from parent to parent, spending time visiting, and sharing meals with one another. And probably more time explaining what in the world we are doing moving to North Carolina.

Be praying for us, as our parents and siblings and relatives don’t really understand why we do the things we do. Pray that we will have wisdom, and gentleness as we share our testimony of faith with them.

I will also need to be getting some paperwork stuff taken care of…which includes a trip to the courthouse to get a copy of the kid’s birth certificates, and running to Grandville to place an order for one of my brides.

I will keep reminding myself to…….Breathe!

Where is the "good" in goodbye?

As I sat in church this morning, surrounded by my family and people I have grown to love these past two and a half years, I thought to myself; “How can there be anything good about saying goodbye?”

I looked at individuals….Jon Sausser playing the guitar, Rachel Green singing, Cheri Parks playing the piano and catching a glimpse of Esther Byler out of the corner of my eye signing and again I thought to myself how can I rejoice in leaving.

I am not ready.

I am not ready to say goodbye.

I am not ready to leave our youth.

I am not ready to make new friends.

I am not ready to cry.

Thankfully the Lord can do a lot with very little time. I trust that the Lord is going to prepare me to say goodbye to our teens this coming week. I know there is going to be tears as we sit around the campfire, but I also know there will be laughs while we remember the last few years we had together.

I realized today, that saying goodbye is a very selfless thing to do, but holding on is selfish.

I have the temptation to want to hold onto my girls. 

I want to hold onto Lauren.

I want to hold onto Aggie.

I want to hold onto Katie.

I want to hold onto Alex.

I want to hold onto Maddy.

I want to hold onto Ashtine.

I want to hold onto Teddi.

I want to hold onto Stephanie.

I love my girls, but they are not mine. They belong to the Lord. I cannot hold onto them for myself, but what I can do is hold them up in prayer.

So as I get ready to spend a week with them…

I pray that the Lord will help me to hand them over,

and to say GOODBYE.

2 weeks left....you have got to be kidding me!!!

So yesterday I did some errands with Katie in tow, we were talking about us leaving and that was when it had dawned on me that we have 2 weeks left here.

Lots of things are going through my mind these past couple of days. Places I go, people I see that won’t be my normal anymore.

One of my errands yesterday was to drop off a letter to Russell and Carly….talk about bittersweet. For those of you who don’t know, the Kloosterhuis’s moved into the apartment we use to live in while we were at New Tribes. Yesterday was my first time seeing it since we left it last June.

Things are just getting weird…..

After we chatted with Carly for awhile we said our goodbyes and I took Katie to go see the “pool”, which isn’t a pool anymore.  I walked up and down the halls and smelled familiar smells, memories of my family were coming back to me. And then something dawned on me.

I don’t like change…..

I have moved way too much in my life that it seems like I would be use to it by now. This fall when we move to Winston-Salem, it will be the beginning of living in my 17^th home.

Please be praying for us while we make the preparations to go through this change. Many things still need to fall in place and there are a few things we still need.

Be praying for:

 myself, as I have to edit and deliver orders for 3 weddings I did this past month.

beds for the kids, we are looking for bunk beds because they save space.

bedding for twin beds and a queen bed.

that we could find affordable living close to the college.

finances to fall in place.

finding a school for the kids to attend this fall.

looking for a chest freezer to transport food and to have while attending school.

the kids as we still need to explain what is happening.

our youth.

our family to accept and support the news.

Taking Leaps of FAITH!

Our family is going through so much transition right now. I have a feeling this post is going to be an extra long one, trying to catch everyone up on our life.

This transition period has been especially hard on myself. Lots of things are changing and everything in our life that we thought was our normal has become very different.

It started back at the end of May. Although it may seem silly to some people, something in our life happened that really threw us for a whirl. Rodney and I have been married for 7 years and for all of those 7 years we have owned two black labs.

I got Maggie when I was still in high school, before Rodney and I were married. Then after we got married Rodney gave me Molly as a Christmas present. We love our dogs very much and they have been a part of our family. When we moved to New Tribes we were concerned about what we were going to do with them. Thankfully Rodney's mom decided to "babysit" them for two years for us while we were in college.

Last June we were able to go home and pick them up and bring them to their new house and the kids adjusted to having them around again. 

We have housesitted for a couple from our church that had to go to Africa for a year. We were blessed with a beautiful home in a country setting with lots of space for our dogs to run and for the kids to play.

This last May, Molly disappeared. I called for the dogs to come back into the garage and Molly never came back. Days and weeks went by and we made many efforts to locate her. From putting ads up, asking neighbors, searching in the woods/ditches, animal shelters and we have had no luck. Our prayer is that someone picked her up to keep her. Well that left us with a decision, all of a sudden we had one dog left.

The following weeks were hard and difficult and weird. We would arrive home and open the garage door and only one dog would come to greet us. Maggie started misbehaving and becoming very mopey.

Rodney and I sat down and talked about our future and what it is going to entail. At that point we felt that it was in the best interest to find Maggie a new home, with fellow dogs. A place where her owners would be home and available to give her the attention she needed.

I posted an ad that day and the following day a lady called and wanted to buy Maggie. We sat down and explained to the kids that we wanted Maggie to have friends and that she really misses Molly and we want Maggie to have a better home. They were sad, but seemed to understand the decision.

That night River and I loaded Maggie into the back of my jeep and we headed off for the ladies house. We arrived to a beautiful antique farm house set on a ton of acreage that was completely fenced in and even had a gated driveway. 

We talked to the family and she got to meet the other dogs, and things seemed to go well. One of the main reasons I decided to bring River with me, was so I would stay strong and not cry. That was a very hard thing for me to do.

The next few weeks were very hard and I would think about it and cry. I was excited to be leaving this house and moving because there were too many reminders of our dogs living there with us.

The next month would bring in a lot of stress. We had to move out of our house that we were house sitting for the past year by July 10th and we had no idea where we were staying yet. With no furniture, beds or anything. God was testing our faith and most of all....... my patience.

The Lord revealed to us in His timing...unfortunately not mine, where we would be staying. Some stress was relieved at that point.

So moving week arrived and my mom came down for the last part of it to help me clean the house we were leaving and get it ready for the family to come back to it.

During this whole time our position at First Baptist Church was kind of in question, and we were re-evaluating where we were going to be in the future. After seeking many options, from sending our resumes to different churches and looking into a position in Norway, the Lord laid on our hearts that this may be the perfect timing and transition to go back to school.

This past Sunday, it was announced to our church family and our youth that we would be leaving First Baptist and going back to school so Rodney could earn his Bachelor's. 

It was a rough Sunday for everyone. The news shocked many, but many were thrilled to see us progressing in our faith and trust and our education.

Our last Sunday at church will be August 8th, and then Rodney and I and the family will be moving to Winston-Salem North Carolina for Rodney to attend Piedmont Baptist College to earn his Bachelor's. 

This is a big jump for our family and many more things need to come together before August 8th. Please be praying for us and with us through this transition time. And be praying for the youth group and how we can make a few more memories with them in these last few weeks.

My heart breaks already for the relationships and people we are going to have to say goodbye to.