A few reflections on our last days in Salem...

We are officially “on vacation” now.  After two days, I realized I need to tell myself that I actually am on vacation and then start acting like it.  After the rush and work and stress of packing the container and finishing packing for four weeks on the road and who-knows-how-long without our container (3-4 months or more?) and the high emotions of saying goodbye, unwinding doesn’t come easy.   But…take a deep breath… we are on vacation… (or something like that…when we are sleeping in 11 different places in 30 days…hmmm… J)

By God’s grace, we jumped in over our heads…and by God’s power, he is bringing us through.  It’s a great position to be in, really…  For the last couple weeks, I went to bed every night, feeling like Gideon, begging the Lord for strength and help for tomorrow…knowing I’m completely inadequate and unable to do all that is required of me.  And yet, like with Gideon, God worked mightily in our weakness to show forth his glory.  Because of God’s grace, our last weeks in Salem were a time of thriving…not just surviving. 

In March, a friend of a friend called.  Rose Elena, who is a homeschool graduate and a wonderful organizer and babysitter, was wondering if I wanted help in those areas before she left for Mexico in July.  Help?  Oh my, yes please!!  She spent most of her days this spring, at our house!  Wow!  I didn’t even know we would need her help, but the Lord knew…and provided before I even asked!

Last week, another friend of ours spent the entire week with us.  She worked and packed and helped…we wouldn’t have gotten everything done without her: another gift the Lord gave to us, before I could even ask or think of it.

With all the business and manual labor, one would think I would have burned more calories than I took in, but no… people brought lunches, suppers and cookies and cookies and cookies.  Moving is not a good weight loss program with all these dear friends around… And paper plates, bowl, spoon, knives and forks…yup…they thought of that too.

 And starting on the Thursday before our departure, I believe we had at least 20 or more dear ones at our house wrapping, packing, sorting and folding.  My primary job the last few days was to pack only what no one else could and to direct the masses.

So thank you dear friends for praying for us!  God certainly answered our prayers above all that we could ask or think.  Please do not let up in praying for us.  We are still in need! 

::Pray for safe travels for us!  We are driving our 12 passenger van and pulling a 10 foot trailer.  So far, all is well.  I just figured out, with the help of our techno-savey cousin, how to hook a microphone to my computer and then my computer to the tape deck so that I can talk to the kids over the speakers of the van without having to YELL MY BRAINS OUT!!!  It’s great…now I really feel like we are in a bus…this time, a tourist bus…”and on the right you will see fields, fields and more fields of Alberta…”  But it really does make reading books easier…

::Continue to pray for good “good-byes.”  Saying good bye to our church family was really hard.  By God’s grace we have loved deeply (not perfectly, I’m sure…but deeply…) and now it hurts deeply…as it should… but that doesn’t make it fun.  We look forward to heaven where God will wipe away our tears and we never have to say good-bye again.  We have more “good-byes” coming…more friends and family across Canada and the US.

::Pray for health on the road.  Every year that we have made this cross country trek (three times now), we have been sick by the third week and super ready to go home by the fourth.  I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this…there is no comfort of home waiting for us after four weeks on the road…that’s when we take off for a whole new world…  Feeling like Gideon again at the thought of this and trusting the Lord to help us.

Thanks for praying for us!  Vacation pictures coming!!