Time to go...

 Greetings from Houston, TX...

Today is the day!  Lord willing, we will set out on the next step of our journey.  I don’t look at this as the beginning.  We began this journey back in February 2020, when we applied for Mercy Ships.  It has made twists and turns that we would have never written into our story if we had been holding the pen.  However, through it all, God has been so faithful, and I’m really glad He was in control.

As I mentioned in our last blog post, we have grown and changed throughout this season of our journey in ways that we wouldn’t have elsewhere.  We also were given the opportunity to see more places and spend extra time with family and friends.

More hard goodbyes...

Speaking of family and friends, though, that is one of the difficult parts about this next step.  We said our goodbyes back in January and that was hard.  Now, I find we are saying goodbyes again.  Goodbye to our little green house on Mercy Ships campus, goodbye to our new friends in Lindale, goodbye to our families again.     

I'm reminded of the verse in Luke 18 that God brought to mind last December when we were beginning the goodbye process.  "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in the present time and in the age to come."  My devotional yesterday read, “It’s difficult to be obedient if we are holding onto something too tightly.  The Lord wants our attachments to be exclusively to Him, so we can shine his light into the world.”  Goodbyes are a part of the Christian life; we are not even promised tomorrow.  So, we say good bye now to the comforts of the American lifestyle.  We say “see you soon” to our friends and families here.  We head out today, holding on to the joy that those people, places, and things brought into our lives and press on toward the calling that God has for us to be a light into the world.

Rosie caught a couple of mosquito fish in the pond on
campus with her bucket when we arrived.  They lived with us until the day we left. 

Pray for us...

We obviously have a lot facing us with COVID and travel restrictions and…flying with a TWO YEAR OLD!  Please pray for us.  

Pray for:

-Health and safety as we travel

-Easy trip with the kids

-Favor with immigrations

-Help with transitioning to our new home

Support us...

As always, if you’d like to support us financially, please use the donation link below.  A big thank you to all of you who have come alongside us financially.  All donations are being held for us in our Ship Account that we will have access to when we arrive.  

DONATE HERE

Just a bit of what we've been up to...

Grandma Oberly came to visit!

Reading, "Here Comes Grandma", with Caleb.

We got to celebrate Grandpa Scace's birthday!

Jeff was able to celebrate my brother, Eric's, 40th birthday, with a ride through Colorado.

Bucket list trip to Big Bend National Park.

The trip was well worth the drive.

Our lovely friend and Mercy Ships colleague shared
fresh honey from her hive and taught us all about bees. 

Rosie and Ava enjoying scraping the honey from the comb.

Six Flags over Texas trip with our big kids.  (Rosie is actually in this picture, ha ha!)

Goodbye lunch with friends headed to the ship and friends staying behind.

One of our hard goodbyes.  The Blom Family from the Netherlands, who became our ISC Family.

Another hard goodbye.  Our wonderful neighbors, The Schwinds,
who have been on the ship, but will not be returning.  Their boys and our girls played all summer.

Ladies trip to Magnolia Market in Waco, TX.

Local motocross track.  Caleb's first dirt bike race.  He loved it!

Christmas in July with Ms. Beth and Ms. Trina. 
Lucky for us, these two amazing teachers will be joining us on the ship.

Weekend trip to Georgetown, TX, with friends.

Visiting the mini train in Mineola, TX.

Celebrated Ava's 10th Birthday a little bit early with some fun at Urban Air.

Another early birthday celebration for Ava and Grandma Cakes.