And...We're Off!

Right now I’m on our bus, bouncing along at 60 mph, listening to Andrew Peterson’s song “Many Roads”, and trying to type up an update to publish for all of you once we get to North Dakota. Do you know how hard it is to type while bouncing along in our bus at 60 mph? It’s a good thing that I’ve got 18 hrs. to do this!

On Thurs., Julie, Lewis, and I did one last concert with the Shepardsville Team (the local band we play with). We said most of our good-byes then, to our awesome, fun-loving, supportive friends; tho, several from the bunch stopped in, at different times on Fri. and Sat., to help out a little and/or say one final good-bye. They will all be greatly missed!!

            

 

Some of you might be wondering what it’s like to pack and prepare for 4 months of travels. Well, you can compare it to two things:

1. packing and preparing for a week-long camping trip, multiplied by 18, on a much larger scale – like taking a box of clothes instead of a backpack, and taking way more canned foods than anyone could consume in 1 week! 

2. moving, but only temporarily, on a much smaller scale – like sorting cupboards and drawers, deciding what’s important and what’s not, etc. 


In any case, there is always a big mess that needs to be made before things can be efficiently packed into the bus and organized for our long journey. 
Billy and Ansy have been in ND for a week already. Jay & Rachel were in Indiana for a wedding last Sat.; so, the boys caught a ride down there and left to spend an extra week with their nephews (who are also their best friends) and big sisters and company. 
Before they left, they had their   

boxes all packed and ready to go, sitting in the hallway waiting to be loaded. The rest of us were busy making a maze on our kitchen floor, then transferring everything to the bus. Seth Derby helped out after work on Fri. – that is, when he and Lewis weren’t bumping into eachother! 

We had most everything, except our personal boxes, packed in by early evening yesterday (Sat.). Heather Case brought pizza over for us and helped get the floor and dishes all cleaned up. You should have seen the pile of dirt! and the stack of dishes that comes from not having time to wash them since breakfast! She was a trooper

After taking several hrs. off to relax and get a breather, we each  scooted off to finish packing our personal boxes and belongings. I got to bed before midnight, but some of the others only got a few hrs. of sleep before wake-up call at 5:30 this morning. After showers and making a check list to make sure we didn’t forget anything, we got to work: loading up  our boxes, filling water jugs, making sure nothing was left plugged into outlets, straightening up rooms, etc. 

Joe and his girlfriend, Bethany, got there in time to help – did I mention that they’re coming with us to ND? Yup! But it’s supposed to be a surprise for the others, so don’t tell anyone :D They’ll take the train home when we leave for the next leg of our journey. 
Our take-off time had been set at 7 AM on Sunday, October 27, 2013. At 7:10 we were pulling out of our drive-way after praying for God’s protection and blessing over everything as we travel.
Thank-you, everyone, for your continued prayers and support! Stay tuned for more :D 

Pray for Us

Here is a picture of the bunch who'll be heading away from our home in Michigan, in that big brown bus behind us, to journey to distant lands and places...well, it's actually just to Central America, but we will be logging over 3,000 miles in traveling alone! 

Our plans are to travel through Mexico and into Belize, where we will be spending our first month(ish), not quite sure doing what, but helping wherever the need is at locations Dad visited a year ago. From Belize, we will go to to Guatemala for a few weeks over the Christmas season to help a native pastor and his church ministries/outreaches in a city we have only spent a few days at prior to this. (I'll let you know what the actual name of the city is when I remember!) From January on, most of our time will be spent in Chichi (pronounced chee-chee), which is actually a shortened version of the actual name, Chichicastenango (try getting your tongue around that word :). We are also hoping to spend some time in the village that has become very near and dear to our hearts, Chijoj/Canilla' (pronounced chee-ho'h (long 'o')/cah-nee-ya'h. (Chijoj is a village within walking distance from the town Canilla') Four winters in a row were spent, as a family of 10, living in this village and town, and the place has become like a second home to us. 

Before we leave the States, however, we will first take a 'slight' detour to visit our two married sisters and their families in North Dakota; from there, we'll start for Texas and the Mexican border. We'll make a few stops in TX to visit friends we haven't seen in a while, including our two married brothers and their families. Needless to say, we are super excited to be able to see almost our whole family before leaving! With 11 kids it's no small feat to see the "big sibs" and their little munchkins in such a short span of time :) 

We leave on October 27th. Ahh!! so much to do! We haven't really started packing yet; what am I doing on here?? There's work to be done :) 

Please keep us in your prayers these following weeks and months. Pray that we will be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ wherever we are. Pray for wisdom, open doors, and God's favor and grace in our journeys.

And check back for updates! I'm hoping to get some pictures up of the packing process - maybe next week sometime. 

What is Revival?

Revival. If we’re praying for it we should know what it is, right? This is what I've been learning recently ~Revival is Falling in Love with God, Again~

From a physical standpoint, when a person stops breathing, if someone does the whole CPR thing on them and if that person starts breathing again, then s/he has been revived. Or, when a person’s heart stops beating, if the med. staff does the whole chest compression/medicine injection thing, and if that person’s heart starts beating again, then s/he been ‘revived.’ To seriously be revived there are two conditions that must be met. The first condition is that you must have a need to be revived. The second condition should maybe actually be the first – you must have been, at one point in time, alive and active in order to be revived.

When it comes to the spiritual standpoint of revival these two conditions must also be met. As a Christian, you must have been, at one point in time, alive and active in your walk with Christ. This doesn’t just mean faithfully praying, reading your Bible, and whatever else we put into the criteria of being a Christian. Although these things are VERY important, they don’t define what a walk with Christ is all about. In Revelation 2:4 the church at Ephesus was praised for their good works, patience, and discernment, BUT they were criticized (to the point of losing their identity in their part with Christ) of leaving their first Love.

Our walk with Christ is a journey of falling in love with Love Himself. It’s a journey of learning to love Him with complete abandonment – the way He first loved us! This true, life-giving love is so deep that the more we understand it, the more we find that we can never completely comprehend it, that there is always so much more to learn about it, about Him. First John 4:7-8 says this: “My loved ones, let us have love for one another, because love is of God, and everyone who has love is a child of God and has knowledge of God. He who has no love has no knowledge of God, because God is love.” See? When you start to understand love, you start to understand God. As you get to know God, as you walk in close, intimate communion with Him, you can’t help yourself from falling in love with Him! His patience (oh, how patient He is!), His forgiveness (not just 70 x 7 but 70 times 70 x 7, and more!), and everything else that defines true love (see 1 Corinthians 13 especially verses 4-8).

If you are in need of revival then there have been those times in your life that you were walking in joy and peace with your Father. Somehow, somewhere along the way that abundant life sorta died out or cooled down. When you’ve reached the point of needing revival, you’ve reached the point of needing life again – real life. Maybe you need spiritual CPR – a breath of life to start living again; or, maybe your heart has stopped completely and you need a serious injection of the Spirit of God to get you off the bed, out of recovery, and living again.

When revival comes it brings with it a fresh life and a fresh perspective. You can look back and see how close you came to dying and were given life again. It brings with it a fire in our bones that will only burn brighter and fiercer as we let the Holy Spirit take control – if we neglect it, the flame will once again die down.

So many of our families, churches, and communities need revival. They are people who have had life but are dying and need a refreshing breath. Some are lying on beds with failing hearts, not knowing what to grab on to or who to ask for help in receiving the Spirit’s life that is so freely given to those who ask, so promisingly found for those who seek. As Christians we do have an immense responsibility to reach the lost souls with the message of Christ, but we must also be there for our fellow brothers and sisters. The weak need support, the newborns need food, the hurting need healing… Revival is for the Body of Christ!

When healing replaces the hurt, when the weak have become strong in the strength of Christ, and when we operate as a body, then, the natural outcome will be going to the street corners and dark interiors with the hope of Christ. God has given us each separate gifts (Romans 12) and when we work together, we work to our fullest potential. The reason the word picture we get of a revival sweeping across a nation as ‘crowds of sinners kneeling at the foot of the cross’ is this: when revival comes to the hearts and lives of Christians and as we walk this journey of Love with the Lifegiver, as we fall in Love with God, we find what true love is all about.

It’s about giving (and giving!), it’s about reaching out, it’s about binding the wounds of the broken, it’s about letting go and forgiving, it’s about putting others’ needs above our own, it’s about abandoning all else in a mission of living a life of love with God as our boss, and having joy and peace and contentment as our reward on earth; and living in the knowledge of spending eternity gazing into the face of, living in the presence of - Love.