30 Days of Waiting

It has now been eight days since our original Colombian mission field departure date. It had been months of non-stop paperwork, support raising, traveling, presenting our ministry, preparing ourselves for this huge life change, and most of all purging, packing, and more purging and packing. I don’t know if anyone can identify with me with the work that goes into international moves with young children at home, but it is not for the faint of heart. We were so prepared and excited to finally move, six of the eight boxes had been shipped, all Colombian and American passports in hand praying that the pandemic would not alter our life change we had been preparing for since our support raising journey in August of 2018. We had all of our suitcases completely packed and what we thought was our “last night”, we reminisced of all the good and bad memories that we had over the course of the year living in the mission home. Since we were planning on staying at my parents the last two weeks before our departure we said “goodbye” to all our possessions that our sending church had bought from us. The following morning we heard the Colombian President, Duque, announce that they were closing their boarders and airports to all Colombian citizens and tourists for 30 days. Well, as you can imagine our flight was canceled, we chose to stay in the mission home, and our plans to depart came to a complete and utter halt. We were heartbroken, but also nervous since we had just sent our boxes to Colombia literally that day and only had a suitcase each of clothes and a small bag of toys I had set aside for the airplane and airport. My first thought was, how will I keep my 1 year old and 2 year old entertained for 30 days without toys, books, crafts, or teaching materials. I also thought, how we will manage a month with only a suitcase of clothes each. I thought I had NOTHING… We didn’t even realize what was in the two boxes that had not been sent yet, a few days later we looked and by God’s goodness the two boxes remaining to be shipped was the box of the girls toys and my craft supplies box. Wasn’t God so kind? Isn’t God amazing for having put it on the heart of our sending church to buy all our stuff and keep it in the mission home until we leave? Could you imagine if we had to sell each piece of our furniture, kitchen appliances, etc. piece by piece and literally have nothing to sleep or sit on at home? We are so grateful that God is gracious to work out each detail. Even in our heart break of putting our ministry and in a sense “life” on hold for 30 days, God has a purpose for this. He has a purpose for everything. Needless to say, we are still lacking maybe what we want, but never are we lacking what we need.

It has been beyond amazing having a set schedule and routine after so many months of being on the road traveling and presenting the ministry. The girls have had so much bonding time and we also started potty training our oldest. She has been ROCKING it! I will blog about our potty training experience another time. For now, here is some snapshots of our last eight days of 30 days of waiting.