three days.

Well here we are, friends.  Today is Monday.  We leave on Thursday.  Just three days left.

In lieu of Multitude Monday today, I want to say that I am very, very grateful for the prayers of the saints – and that includes you – on our behalf.  That is gratitude number 306 through 1,000.  They are palpable in the air around us and in our hearts.  They are the only answer for the peace that inside of me right now and the fact that I slept soundly for eight hours last night and for the fact that when Judah saw his daddy pull out all the suitcases yesterday he started dancing around the house with excitement for our move.

I am broken-hearted.  I will miss Christmas with our families, my very favorite holiday, with its warmth and lights and happy chaos.  I will miss my friends, sitting and talking with them face-to-face over a cup of hot tea or having play dates with our children.  I will desperately miss my nephew being born in March, being able to jump in a car and drive up to PA to meet him and hold him.  I will miss our pastor’s sermons, seeing the Spirit of God move in his heart and give him boldness and love for our body.  I will miss hugs and text messages and running into dear faces in supermarkets and at the park.

I am excited.  When we visited Ethiopia two years ago, I remember setting foot on African soil that first cloudy day and feeling so, so happy.  I felt like apart of my heart came alive in that completely strange place, meeting new people, fumbling over their language, being blessed by the kindness of their smiles and welcoming touches.  I know there are so many things that will be mundane and frustrating and uncomfortable about moving to another country.  I know the electricity will go several times a day.  I know there is no Wal-Mart and I won’t have a car and everyone will stare at us.

But I am itching to know South Asia.  To smell its smells and see its people and hear their stories and in the process to learn more about the God who made me and who made them too.  He is giving David and Judah and Amelie and me this amazing gift of learning with and from the body of Christ in another, faraway place, of watching him doggedly seek out and save his other sheep who are not of this fold, and I am receiving it with open, trembling hands.

I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

So, thank you.  We need you.  God hears your prayers for us.  He delights to answer.  He loves you more than you will ever know, but I pray you know it more than you do right now.  And I pray that in the knowing, you are changed and your heart is freed in ways you never imagined.  It’s better than anything.