Transition...

 Greetings from Lindale, Texas...

On January 11 (Rosie’s 8th birthday), we said goodbye to our lovely home of over five years, our little town we have grown to love, and a whole group of wonderful friends.  As expected, those last few days were filled with sadness, excitement, anticipation, and work…a whole lot of work.  Moving is hard, but add, the need to purge for storage, pack for warm weather/cold weather/cultural dress codes, anticipate growth spurts, and all while losing 3,000+ square feet of living space—let’s just say we were exhausted.

New Beginnings...

We are so grateful that God placed us a short 3.5 hour drive away from our first destination.  Mercy Ships International Support Center is located in Lindale, TX.  It is about 1.5 hours outside of Dallas on approximately 400 acres.  The campus is half farmland/forest and half office space.  This is our first stop on the way to the ship.  Our temporary home consists of two living spaces connected by a set of double doors.  We have one bathroom to share for our family and a small eating area to share with some other volunteers.  We miss having our space, our kitchen, more than one bathroom, etc; but, we know this is good preparation for living in community on the ship.

We are here for approximately six weeks.  Part of the requirement for a long-term serve commitment (24+ months) is taking part in OnBoarding as a family, which is Mercy Ship’s way of training and equipping those who work and volunteer for the organization.  After the last few months of busyness and preparation, it is a beautiful place to realign ourselves with the mission set before us.  

It has been really incredible getting to know this organization better.  We have met some amazing people who have really interesting stories on how God brought them to this place in their lives.  One thing we hear from everyone is how different it is here due to COVID.  Normally (so I’ve been told), the campus is buzzing with people who work here full time, OnBoarding classes are two or three times the size of ours, and no one wears masks!  Ha!  Well, we know that God brought us here for “such a time as this” and though we wish we could see this place at its best, we are grateful and know that this is the time we were supposed to be here.

We have included lots of photos below of the last six weeks.

Prayer Requests...

Please keep us in your prayers; specifically, we are waiting to find out if we can meet the ship in the Canary Islands soon.  Spain currently has travel restrictions in place for Americans, but Mercy Ships is trying to get us travel documents.  We pray that God will expedite this process so we can make the big move sometime in March.

As always, if you are interested in supporting us financially, I am including a link to our donation page.  

Thank you for your love and support!

DONATE

Mercy Ships International Support Center
Lindale, TX

Jeff and Andrea, Day 1 of OnBoarding

Mercy Ships values families and have included the
children every step of the way.

Kids OnBoarding Day 1 for the girls with their
wonderful teacher and friend, Ms. Beth Kirchner.

Ms. Beth decorated our kitchen with the kids' artwork.

The girls got to meet their future teacher aboard the ship and a few
of their classmates.  We can't wait to get there!

The girls and Ms. Beth reading Swirly for their final project.  Swirly is a
book for children about how cross cultural living changes us.

Jeff and Andrea during the Basic Fire Fighting class.

Jeff and Andrea practice extinguishing a container fire.

Climbing into the container.

Andrea learning how to flip over a life raft during Personal Survival Skills Class.

Jeff preparing to jump in the water to test out an Immersion Suit.

We couldn't have completed our training without the help of our wonderful family. 
Grandma Oberly came to stay for a couple of weeks and
then Grandma and Grandpa Scace came to stay after that.  We are SO grateful!
(Photo Credit:  Emily Frazier, future photographer for the Africa Mercy)

So much fun with Grandma Oberly!  Dancing, parks, museums, all while doing
OnBoarding and homeschooling.

Grandpa and Grandma Scace braved the
cold weather to spend some quality time with the kiddos during training.

Their one beautiful day before the bitter cold arrived.

Caleb thoroughly enjoying the staircase in our temporary home.

The highlight of his day is finding this front loader on campus.

Spending some quality time with our lovely neighbors,
Ms. Beth and Ms. Emily (photographer extraordinaire).

These girls love their brother.

A fun look at life in a community.  Movie night in the cafe!

Yes, we are still in Lindale in this photo experiencing record cold and snow!