You may see interesting packaging design, bold colors, Texas Tough, or simply the beauty of HEB (it’s a Texas thing), but I see something completely different: There are more garbage bags in this box than we can use in the time we have remaining in Texas. Yikes!
The reality of the fact that we’re about to make an international move hits us in unexpected ways as the target date of our move grows ever-closer. For instance, I went to the grocery store a few weeks ago with a specific list of required items, including trash bags. Historically, I would simply find the largest package of the right-sized bags, and call it a day, knowing that our large family would eventually use them all up. But as I stood there in the cleaning-products aisle of our local HEB, looking at the box of 100 Tall Kitchen Bags (New & Improved!), I realized that there were more bags in this box than we could use in the time we had left. That brought about feelings of both extreme excitement and sudden panic at the same time.
Along those same lines, today marks an important milestone in our journey: it’s exactly 4 months from our target departure date of June 15, 2015. Or 17 weeks (plus a day). Or 120 days. Or 2,880 hours. This date makes sense for many reasons: it’s after the end of the school year in Germany, so we can move without worrying about enrolling the kids in school immediately. It’s also during the summer, which gives us a few months of “warm” weather before fall and winter set in. It also allows us about a week of overlap with the family who’s home we’re planning to rent, so they can show us how everything works and help us make the transition there. And, it allows us a whole summer as a family to get oriented to our new home before the busyness of the new school year takes over.
That we only have 4 months left in Houston is a sobering fact–there are SO many things that must happen in the next months for us to successfully depart to Germany. Possessions must be dispatched, plans arranged, leases signed, tickets bought, cars sold, bags packed, repairs made, and goodbyes must be said. Oh, and we will probably need to sleep sometime during all this.
But, it’s also an encouraging fact–after a years-long journey toward this very goal, we are so incredibly close now. We are on the precipice of an entirely new journey: one lived in complete and total dependence upon God, as we serve Him in very specific ways through our new roles with Wycliffe. Even more so than ever before, we see even more fully that everything must come from Him, especially the finances to carry out the task He’s given us. Many of you have committed to partnering financially with us in the calling God has given us and are currently doing so. Others of you have indicated to us that you are interested in doing so, but we’ve not been able to connect in a way that allows us to finalize what that looks like. Still others of you may be thinking about, praying about, or considering that God may be leading you to partner with us, but you have yet not communicated that to us. We encourage all of you to consider how God might be leading you to become involved with us in bringing the Bible to the bibleless–we’d love to hear from you.