Moving Day Part III

We drove to Houston on Sunday night, the night before we are scheduled to be at the warehouse.  In addition to going to the ware house we have to go to DHL shipping to pick up solar equipment previously ordered from African Energy.  The order was a rush job and paid for on Friday at 3 pm and so the order was not confirmed or released until Monday morning.

 

Day 1:  Houston

We were expected at the shipping warehouse by 9 am.

We awoke first thing and actually made it to DHL international shipping by 7:40 and had to wait for them to open.  When we did get inside the men at the dock had no idea what we were talking about.  We had to explain a little and so they called the rep in charge of African Energy who told them she had no idea what I was talking about.  So we called AE and explained the issue to them and they then called DHL and “released the order”.  We had to wait 70 minutes for the order to be brought out of the warehouse.

 

We finally arrived the first morning around 930 am and immediately began to work through the poorly packed boxes that left our house.  We tried to repack boxes and consolidate stuff we wanted and take out things that we didn’t mean to send down.  Besides the heat you could tell that the supervisor was not thrilled with us opening boxes and messing up his system.

 

The company guy that we had been communicating with came to the warehouse later in the morning and after looking around told us that there was no way everything would fit.  He told us that they have never fit that much total volume by weight on a 40 foot container and that the central office told them it couldn’t be done.

 

Well that kind of discouraged us but Pat, the team supervisor looked at us and said that he would get it on.

 

The next greatly discouraging thing was the inventory method.  The movers who came to Tyler used yellow stickers with preprinted numbers and a few white stickers.  They would not yet us put our inventory numbers on the boxes they packed.  The guys at the warehouse used orange stickers and put them on some of the boxes with the other stickers.  Now we had 4 different numbering systems.  Rwandan’s don’t like complicated things.  In addition, the supervisor was wrapping our large bins/tubs in the same paper they used to wrap furniture but did not put our inventory numbers on the outside of the wrapping.  I tried to cut through one but it was about 12 layers of wrapping paper with at least two layers of that mesh paper that was impermeable.  He put one of his stickers on the outside of the wrapping and labeled them “plastic bins” or “trunks”.   We had no idea what was in each trunk.  The issue is, we have to place value on each numbered item for tax and insurance reasons.  Some trunks had ziplocks or used kids clothing worth 10 bucks and some had transformers and electronics worth hundreds and we have no idea which is which.  If you guess and get caught putting a value of 10 dollars on a box of transformers worth $200 you can get fined or in trouble and then they can make you open every box in customs and delay the release of your container by weeks.

 

Day 2:

The shipping co. saved the actual loading for today and we were up by 5:30 to arrive at the warehouse by 7.  I am totally at peace about what fits or doesn't fit.  (We had a lot of people praying about many aspects of this day, and I could really feel it.)

 

The first part of the day went pretty well, even though to our inexperienced eyes it did NOT look like it would all fit.  The Loading Guys were very good at their job and very kind to us.  They also played Christian music on their radio.  I can't tell you what a blessing that was to us.  They didn't cuss, either.  Crazy.  They also were oddly open about sharing their lives with us.  It's funny that we are ministering more than ever here in the states now that we're moving overseas.

 

By noon they had the flat bed trailer loaded on ( Yay, we have a trailer!  Dave, you must have prayed for that!  :-), AND the kayak AND the canoe.  No way did we ever think all that was going on there, but God just kept right on stuffing it in.  The appliances went on early, so just "house" boxes were left.  I need to say that we drove down to Houston in separate cars so we could take as much stuff as possible "just in case it fit."  Brian had the truck and trailer loaded like Jed Clampett.  All he needed was a rocking chair on top.  I had the mini-van with the seats laid down and loaded with boxes.  (My sister had the kids in Shreveport)

 

Brian had a speaking engagement at 7PM so he left me in charge at 1.  :-(  (That's ok, my team was praying for me...)  At 1:45 they turned to me and said "Ok, what do you want taken off?"  OFF?  They said it wasn't going to fit, and they started ripping open boxes of dishes and pots and pans.  No problem.  We were throwing away as fast as we could, and bundling what we wanted into bundles and jamming it into cracks and crevices.  No numbers.  No inventory.  It was probably better Brian WASN'T there!  Our next prayers will have to be about what gets stolen.  (That's ok, it's God's stuff.  If He wants to give it to a thief I'm ok with that) We UNpacked 13 boxes, but everything but 5 items went on!  Praise God!  Absolutely stunning!  I took lots of pictures.  The stuff left was unneeded, and God blessed us by making it those specific things.  I was so happy I couldn't wait to call Brian.

 

 I said good bye, filled up the gas tank, got a snack and a drink and got on the Beltway 8 in Houston.  I'm stinking filthy, by the way.  I actually took wet wipes and scrubbed the warehouse grime off my knees.  There's something completely humbling about kneeling on a warehouse floor with your personal possessions strewn about on the floor.  I remember thinking "I feel exposed because I'm kneeling here with my pots and pans all over the floor."  The minute I could I called Brian to tell him what happened, but we weren't on the phone 5 minutes when I said "That's funny, the air conditioner just went out."  (It's 101 degrees, ugh)  Then "Brian, the car won't go over 55!"  The exit was 1 and 1/2 miles away, and I'm down to 40mph.  When all the lights started flashing I got over as fast as I could.  This is a toll road, with an entrance 100ft behind me, and an exit 100ft ahead of me.  And a husband 2 hours ahead of me!  Smoke started coming out of the engine, so I got out while I called for a tow truck.  (So many praises here, by the way.  Foremost, I didn't have the kids with me on that scary road!  And I had a snack and a drink!  No problem)  In my experience tow truck drivers take about an hour, so I got back in the car since I'm a closet albino.  Glory if the tow truck arrived in 10 minutes!  Off we went to the Mazda dealership (a 45 min drive in Houston rush hour traffic).  They had to push it into the service bay, and the driver said he only takes cash.  How am I to get that much cash?  The nice dealership lady said "Our shuttle driver's not busy--he'll take you to an ATM."  No problem.  30 minutes later I got to sit in the AC for the first time that day and the lady tells me the engine is blown.  Oh well.  We were going to give the van away, but God had different ideas.  Again, more praises.  About where it happened, when, and to whom.  Brian was on his way back to tow me home.  While I waited 3 hours in the AC with a book, a snack, a drink (the same ones-I still haven't had a chance to eat them) and no kids (:-) a man wanders through from the showroom.   He introduces himself as Mac and he asks me about what I'm doing at the dealership so late.  After recalling the story about our morning and our car he wanted to know all about what happened and where we're going, etc, etc.  I gave him our card at this point, and we sat there for quite a while talking about missions, my family and his family.   When Brian got there Mac got some other guys to help us load the van onto the tow trailer, but it wouldn't go.  He handed Brian the keys to his car and said "Take my car to Wal-Mart to get a hand winch."  So we drove his MERCEDES to the store, came back, got the van loaded.  Brian said, half-jokingly, "Anybody want a free car?"  Mac said "Yes!"  So we drove with him to his house where he treated us like honored guests.  I mean, he offered us food and drinks and honored us with stories about his wife and wonderful daughter.   We then followed Mac to a used car lot and dropped off the car and headed home.  We limped home at 2am, and by 8:30am the next day we had a vehicle offered to us for the rest of the summer.  No joke.

I feel like I haven't done this story justice, but you get the idea of the way God took care of us.  I praise Him for all the blessings, and I thank you guys all for praying over us.  We felt it!

 

Love,

Kristin

Moving Day: Part Deux

I have to say that as hard as we tried we did not do well on our first go around with moving day.  We struggled because movers would not do things our way.  They would keep saying, we will do that when we get to Houston or we can do that later.

Well here we are 2 months later.  

I want to say that the last 2 months have been a specific time that God has taught me about prayer.  I started off May by going to a Church planting workshop where I was amazed by the amount of time "the great church planters" prayed.  I had decided then that I would begin looking at prayer like running.  My wife, at the age of 40 has decided to become a runner.  She has done amazingly well.  She runs three to four times per week and has worked up to over 4 miles.  She even went 8 miles one weekend.  She finished 4th in her age group in the Race for the Cure in Tyler.  Way to go babe.  Anyway, I decide that I would do the same.  I would pray longer each day of the week and work my way towards a more peaceful and "listening" relationship with God.  Strange, when I first began this I thought that I needed to practice saying more and asking for more intervention.  However, the longer I went, the more I realized that I just needed to listen more.  What great peace it can be to ask God to come nearer and then to actually feel that happen.  It opens your eyes and heart wider so that you can actually see the answer to the parts of prayer where you actually talk.

Well, we began to prepare for our trip to Houston this week by praying.  I have been praying for peace and patience so that I did not offend any of the workers at the warehouse.  I'm sometimes good at that.  So far we're golden.  Kristin and her side of the family have been praying diligently that everything we brought would make it on the container.  Still waiting on the verdict.  

Well I awoke in a frenzy last week because I realized that in my hurried preparation for the "Moving Day Part I" that I had put the certified copies of my diplomas, certification and notarized copies of my medical licenses in the box with the originals and then the movers took it away.  I knew I would never find them.  However, I needed them because the people in the government offices of Rwanda love certificates, especially if they have a stamp or a seal on them.  Kristin and I began to pray that not only would God give us the vision and the discernment to identify the items we really needed and the top "want" items from the endless boxes but that he would make ours eyes able to see the exact box my certificates were in.  Getting a work permit is hard to do without certificates and nearly impossible if you cannot prove you are qualified to do the work you're applying to do.  And you cannot get the container that the certificates are on if you don't have a work permit.  Huge ugly circle!!

Well today as we are rummaging through the warehouse I moved a large box so Kristin could repack it and behind it was a smaller thin box that had a bunch of papers just hanging out perpendicular like a flag.  Literally just sticking out!!  I pulled them out and they were the notarized copies of my original certificates and diplomas!!  As they say in East Texas, I almost fell out!!!  The papers had slid around in the box and somehow while in transit the box had been turned on it's side for just a moment then stood back up upon storage and the papers slipped halfway out of the box.  I don't need to explain more about that prayer...

The second prayer event today was the container itself.  The movers had said the shipping company would deliver the container to the warehouse around 10.  By noon it was not there and so we left and bought lunch for the packers.  Fortunately there was plenty of wrapping to do and the workers did not have time to be idle.  We arrived back from lunch and I asked Kristin to pray for the container and she prayed for God to give us the container in 20 minutes so that we could get done by mid day tomorrow.  I am not kidding you when I say that it arrive 20 minutes later on the dot!!

Now I would say that in the past not only was I a prayer that only talked to God, as opposed to listening.  I also was a person who believed in generalized answers to prayer rather than specific.  I find now that as we draw closer to leaving for Rwanda that God has drawn me closer and, if I can be so bold as to imply what God thinks, has enjoyed our listening time together.  It is great to listen to and for God in these last days in the States and I have continued to workout my listening and praying skills and some day I hope I can spend my time only listening.  That way I wont have to ask God for things.  I'll just live my life doing and seeing what he has already asked me to do.

Please continue to lift us up during the next couple of days as we load our container.  Also lift us up as we are down to 6w before we leave for Rwanda.

Dan Rather, CBS anchor, once asked Mother Teresa what she said during her prayers.  She answered, "I listen."  So Rather turned the question and asked, "Well then, what does God say?"

To that Mother Teresa smiled with confidence and answered, "He listens". 

The ramifications of what occurred today will have long lasting effects!

See title!

Love,

The Robinsons

Progress Report

May God be glorified in all the earth!!  Jesus is risen!  Happy Easter to all.

The last few months have been busy to say the least but I can surely say they have been faith building.  At first I had considered using the phrase faith testing but of all the things I can say about my family is that we do not feel our faith has been tested by constant beatings but rather we feel our faith has grown from constant use.  We are approaching the final 3 months of our preparations for Rwanda and I can honestly say that I have seen amazing things.

I first want all to know that I give praise every day for Glenwood for their blessings and support.  Not a day goes by that I have not lifted the elders, staff and members of our family up in prayer because of the weekly encouragement we receive and the commitment they made to us in the way of our mission support.  As many know Glenwood is our sending or home congregation and we could not be were we are without them.  

I cannot give thanks and accolades without thinking of and telling the world how much the Rt. 230 Church of Christ in Pennsylvania means to us.  They were there with us when we hurt and now they have remembered us and we give praise and give glory to God for their love and offering of support.  For a small church they have stood up and committed 1/3 of our ongoing work fund.  In addition great people at Rt 230 have donated almost half of our start up funds to date.  We have enough money to ship our container and this would not have been possible without these wonderful people.

This month I was asked to come back to East Grand Church of Christ were I grew up and speak during mission Sunday.   I love that family and I know they have prayed for me and I cannot say how much it means to me to hear them say it and to have them commit support for our startup and work fund.  Because of them I was able to buy our plane tickets this week.  Praise God.

The hidden blessing in our trip to Springfield to visit the church at East Grand was that we met a young lady there who grew up in Rwanda.  She is the girlfriend of the young man recently hired to be East Grand's youth minister.  We were able to sit down with her and show her our slides and talk to her about Rwanda.  She has been a blessing for me and my mom.  My mom obviously is troubled about our moving to Africa but after spending time with Fotine, she has had so much needed peace.  In addition, Fotine has given the church a rare insight to the needs in Rwanda.  She was 7 during the genocide and she says her family was marked for death and was on the list of people being hunted.  Her father was out of the country at the time and her neighbors were saying he ran away and left his family to die.  After the mob came to their house twice and were bribed with beer to go away they had to walk all the way to Burundi where they could finally meet up with her father.  I asked her if she would be offended by the video I had for my presentation and her comment was that nothing I could show her could come close to what she had seen with her own eyes.  After our presentation she stopped me and thanked me for what our team is doing for her country.  I felt God's hand and voice in this young woman.  Out of her mouth was a direct invitation to go and help.

Next on my list of blessing is the news that a wonderful friend and family will moving to Rwanda as well.  In addition to our team there is another group in Rwanda.  They have paved the way for others to come to Rwanda and we all owe them a debt of gratitude.  My dear friends the Shrecks from Oklahoma City will be joining the other team in Rwanda.  I feel so blessed by the people that God is calling to Rwanda.  I cannot be in better company.  I only pray that God will help me keep be an encouragement and be able to measure up next to these great workers.

Finally, we sold our house.  We have been praying for our home to sell and just felt compelled to sell it ourselves.  We prayed diligently for it to sell as did many of you.  After weeks of frustration with very few showings we had become a little discouraged.  We knew this would not be the wall that stopped us from going to Rwanda because we had come so far already.  One day at lunch a friend said to me that selling our house was like David going out to fight Goliath.  When David reached the battle field his brothers and even Saul said he could not face Goliath.  He was told he was too small and weak.  That Goliath was too big.  David's answer was that he had fought against bears and lions and had defeated them by the power of God.  If God had given the bear and the lion into his hands then why would he not give Goliath into his hands.  Goliath would be slain for the glory of the Living God.  That was my prayer after that.  God has delivered greater things into our hands, we have seen him do greater things than sell a house, this would be easy for God.  I know it sounds mystical but God is God and that very week God showed us the person who would eventually buy your house.  She said she wanted it but could not until hers sold.  We were even asked to consider renting it to her until her old house sold.  We agonized over this but knew it was impossible, we could not risk being landlords while in Africa.  We had to say no.  As we prayed we invited her over to the house to talk about the contract and other options and while she was literally pulling up into our driveway her banker called her and told her that she could get a loan without selling her other house.  She walked in the door and said, "Your house is sold".  Praise to a God who has done even greater things and who's deeds are recorded to remind us of his past faithfulness and to tell us that he is the same God tomorrow as yesterday.

Well as I the title says, this is supposed to be a progress report.  I should have called it "Count Your Blessings".

To date we are 16 weeks from our departure date.   We have movers coming to take all of our stuff away on May 4th and the closing of our house is May 8th.  Another blessing and a reminder to me is that one of my partners at work has a home that she is going to let us stay in when ours is closed.  This reminds me to give thanks for all the individuals out there who make up the largest part of our start up giving and work fund commitment.  Without them we would not be going to Rwanda.  God please bless each of them a thousand times over for their gifts and love.

We have not yet raised the last 1/2 of our monthly work fund and are still praying for someone or a church body to raise up and commit the last 20,000 per year we need for our ongoing ministry funds.  

We have raised 75% of our start up funds.  Most of the money we lack is for a vehicle.  God has been so gracious and we know he is providing.  We are again asking him to raise up someone or a group of people to help us raise the last 40,000 we nee for a vehicle.  I would have thought that a large sum (and it is to us) but I have seen great things and I can tell you, $40,000 is easy for God!  An amazing story about our start up funds it the cost of getting to Rwanda has become cheaper.  We were very anxious about the cost of visas, taxes and work permits.  We have been praying for God to give more money for these items but instead he made them cheaper.  The government of Rwanda has dropped the fees for work permits and resident visas from about $5000 per family to only $400.  We also found out that it is very likely that our container will be tax free on arrival.  This will save over $10,000.  Sometimes God does not do things the way we expect.  Fortunately!

We are still looking for someone to help us with solar equipment.  This is a cost of 4000 and is needed because of the common power outages in the Ruhengeri valley.  A small generator will cost less and probably run our necessary appliances like the freezer and the modem but that add the cost of fuel to run the generator.  After only 6 months of using the solar panels we have saved more in electricity costs than we paid for the equipment.  For you business types, our ROI is only 6 months for the solar equipment.

We are praying for God to help us raise 12,000 for our children to attend school in Kigali for the first year.  This is a onetime expense and will allow us to have time to learn language full time and to prepare for our final move to Ruhengeri without having to worry about home schooling our children the first year.   Some have expressed interest in this fund and we are thankful on a daily basis for that and are awaiting to see what God will do.

I know that fund raising is hard and that many are weary of our asking and we just ask God to constantly show us those who can pray and give.  We ask God to give from those who pray.  Thanks to those who repeatedly stop us and remind us that they are praying for us.  I have to say that sometimes I wonder if I am wearing God out.  I think of Gideon when he says, God, please don't be angry with me when (in the words of my children) I say, "Do it again".  Just wet the fleece one more time.    But you know what.  

God is good and he does it over and over.  I pray for so many of you and ask that God will shine his great blessing on you.

My prayers go out to Brett and Keli Shreck and their decision.  They will be blessed with a stronger faith by all that is to come.

A new definition of Humility

I want to confess that this week I am guilty of pride.   Hard for a guy to say such a thing on the internet; especially when he is soon to move to Rwanda as a missionary.  Well, I to am a sinner.  Romans 3:23 tells us that “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  This weekend I realized that my pride had interfered with another prayer that I have been giving to God over the last couple weeks.  As a result I have been praying this last couple of days for God to forgive me and to teach me something about humility.   I have two sayings about humility that I use commonly in times like this.

1.  I hope God will show me how to be humble without actually humiliating me.    

2.     When I think about the definition of humility I think of a man driving a Ferrari down the interstate at 55 mph.

 As the week has progressed God has changed my definition of humility and in the process helped change my heart this week.

This is my new definition of humility. 

As I was looking for something in my wallet this week I found this obituary.   I had put it away planning on saving it for future encouragement. 

 I have a story to tell about this servant.  I apologize that it is a bit of a long story but I can say that it was worth writing.

This woman is someone I watched die. She was admitted to the hospital in Tyler by what some would call “ an accident” but now looking back I see that it might have been her last act of service to come to my rescue this week but that would be selfish and I can say that she also came to die in Tyler so that she could touch many lives. 

She does not live in Tyler but rather, lives in Idaho and Seattle and was only visiting a friend in Tyler the weeks of her death and so again, we should have never met if it had not been God’s will.

I did not meet her first but rather she was admitted urgently and seen by my partner and then passed over to me at our weekly “changing of the guard”.   She was visiting friends in Tyler when she began having trouble breathing and after only hours she became completely unable to breath and was brought into the ER by ambulance.  She was taken urgently to surgery and had a breathing tube surgically placed in her neck and at that time found to have a large thyroid mass strangling her from the inside.   She recovered well after surgery but because of the breathing tube (a tracheotomy) she was not able to speak and was only able to write messages on a pad of paper.  On the third day her pathology came back and she had what was referred to as Papillary cancer of the thyroid with an adjacent area of poorly differentiated cells. 

Papillary cancer is the most common form of thyroid cancer and is very treatable and it is rare for anyone to die from this type of cancer.  It was odd that she had such a bad presentation but after the surgery we all sighed a sigh of relief because we thought she was going to be fine. 

After about week it was my turn to be on call and I can confess that I was not anxious to “babysit” a thyroid cancer lady while we waited for the state to send us a letter of permission for a special form of radiation for the treatment of her cancer.   Well to my delight she was engaging even on a pad of paper.  Over the next couple days I got to know a little bit about her but with her not being able to talk she was learning more about me than I was about her.  After a week she finally received her radiation dose and we said good-bye as she was discharged from the hospital. 

 

About a week later she was readmitted to the hospital for more shortness of breath but this time her trach was compressed and she was found to have masses all in her lungs.  By this time we knew it was not typical Papillary cancer.  A biopsy of the mass protruding into her new breathing tube was found to be Anaplastic thyroid cancer which is 100% fatal with no effective chemotherapy.  It grows so fast that it often looks like the surgery makes it explode.   The undifferentiated cells found on the original surgery were not part of the Papillary mass, they had been Anaplastic from the beginning.

 

Because it was shortly after the holiday my turn on call came back up sooner than usual and I was there this time when the pathology came back.  By this time the speech therapist had given her an attachment for her trach that allowed her to speak.  After I told her about the pathology and the prognosis she did not cry or sound surprised.  She simply said that she was ready to go.  I have heard this before and many people who say this are still scared and anxious but this woman was truly peaceful.  I actually thought her countenance was oddly peaceful.

 

I went to see her every day and I found myself unable to avoid going back.  I was so pleased to get to pray with her and to encourage her.  After 3 days I finally told her that I was moving from Tyler to become a missionary.  Even though she had never cried during any part of this ordeal, she did cry that day.  I thought it was strange.  I hardly knew her but she was crying over my leaving, or so I thought. 

 

Over the next couple of days we waited for a hospice bed to open up so she could leave the hospital and die in peace somewhere else.  She would ask me about Africa every day and on her last day in the hospital her sisters from Seattle came down to say good-bye and when I came in the room Ms. West exclaimed, “here’s the doctor that I told you about, the one moving to Africa.  They all shouted and spent the entire time talking about me and my family and our plans for Africa.  Here I was in the presense of this saint and even her family did not say a word about the work Ms. West did in South America.  They just kept praising God for the work in Africa.

 

That was the last day I saw her.  As I left she said to me, “I pray for you every day and I will keep you in my prayers”.  I didn’t really understand what that meant because I knew she was going away to die and that the last days of her life would be spent in Hospice with others at her side.  She would never see me again.

 

This week when I pulled her obituary out of my wallet and read it again I felt humbled.  I know that she did not go to South America to become the woman in this obituary but she trusted God to use her and to make her what he wanted her to become.  She was a woman who did not let pride interfere with God’s plan for her life.  She trusted him and he gave her his whole spirit.

 

She never told me she was a missionary.  Not even during all the conversations we had about Africa and my plans to move did she or sisters ever say a word.

Today, as I sat thinking of her praying for me with her last breath, I felt God reshaping my heart and teaching me a lesson about humility.

 

When I need a definition or image of humility to share with my kids or others, I will take out this obituary and share this story.

Saying Goodbye

The final goodbyes have begun.  

In my practice I see patients back at different intervals based on the acuity of their illness and in some cases the acuity of their mental state.  Some I choose to bring back because their illness requires it and some come back whether they or I need it.  I have patients that come back yearly for the followup ultrasound of their thyroid, some that come back every six months and so on down the time line.  

I have began to tell my patients this past week that I was leaving and every  day I have crying.

I have been practicing for 6 1/2 years in Tyler and I always find it hard believe that I have truly helped that much.  I always feel that I am doing my best but never feel that I have done enough.  I find now as I tell those who come to see me that they have put their lives in my hands and they feel that it was I who changed their lives.  

As I think about these patients and their encouraging words I begin to think about the work God has called me to in Rwanda.  I go into this not fully sure how God is going to use me but I know that His plan is amazing and involves the saving of a people and I pray that just like my practice I have the chance some day to be able to look back and see how God has used me and to see how he has blessed others by His hand on me.  I only pray that God will let me be even a small part of his plan.

Home Alone!

Well, I find myself home alone on this New Year's Eve.  This is my year to be on call.  I cannot complain much as I have not been on call for New Year's for many years as I have often had the privilege to attend the Cotton Bowl many times in the last 5 years.  Yes, sometimes I have volunteered to work on Thanksgiving or Christmas just to be off on New Year's day.  In case you're wondering about my preference towards Bowl Games over Christmas, please see my previous post.  (for the record, I do love Christmas more than Bowl Games).  

As I sit here and attempt to watch the mini-series John Adams I find myself meditating on the joy of the last year and day dreaming about the joy of the year to come. 

I think of my dear children and the changes that have come to our family this year.   First and foremost we have no more diapers in our home.  There is almost no more joy for a parent of 4 children, who at one time, I think, had three children in diapers at one point.  

I think of my wonderful wife who so bravely stood by me in our decision and many times stood between me and certain death as we made our decision known to others.

I think of my son Samuel who still thinks he wants to paint water towers for a living.  I think that is awesome!

I think of Aaron who at his most intimate moment can still only say, "I wike you daddy".  He has no comforting or compassionate bone in his body so I cherish the word "wike" as I suspect it really means "love".  He has become our Big A.  That is what our family calls him.  Sometimes we refer to him as A.O.    He can spell his name but when he writes it he only writes AO.  

I think of Grace who has become the best swimmer.  Swimming was a passion of mine as a young teenager and even without my prodding she has come to love it.  She brings me such joy.  Of all our children she is most like me.  I ache to know the great Godly woman she is to become!

I think of Madelyn.  She has a 100% in spelling and I am not sure she has missed a spelling word in years.  She is independent.  She is the most capable and responsible 7 year old I have ever seen.  So much so I must constantly remind myself that she is also one of the most cunning.  She is the only child of mine that I cannot tell when she lies.  She is my challenge and that is also joy.

 I think of the day at the end of last year that I sat in a room alone with Marty Koonce and prayed that God would make his will for me and my family known.  I think of the day we sat in our home with the Koonces and gave our fears and anxiousness over to the Lord.  

I think of the night that Glenwood said they would stand behind us and provide for the needs of our family and support the work of God in Rwanda!!!

I think of Rt 230 Church of Christ who has surrounded us with prayer and said they will help us get to Rwanda.

I look forward to being able to give glory to God for that one last partner that will come to our aid and provide our ongoing work fund.  I look forward to being able to share that joy with all of you this year!

I look forward to arriving in Rwanda and joining a team of families that I already love so much.  I find joy in knowing that I will learn to speak the word of God in another language.  That I will see the hand of God change the hearts and lives of countless men, women and families.   I look forward to learning a new and exciting way of life. Learning to live life at a completely new pace.  I look forward in seeing how God will use this new life to change and mature the spirits of my already wonderful children.

I look forward to being in Rwanda on January 1, 2009 and being able to look back at all the ways God has provided for my family and the people of His church.

Bless all of you and know that I pray for you.