Monday, October 29, 2012

Thankful (written by Kristine)

I know it's a little early to be writing thanksgiving posts, but seriously, we have a lot to be thankful for around here and I think waiting until a silly holiday to do it, well... is silly.

As most of you know, we're in a transition period. Instead of a few months passing, it's felt like a few years! Taking a break from our dreams of serving with Mission Aviation Fellowship to follow the Lord's leading was one of the hardest things to do, yet God's completely confirmed in us that it was the right thing to do. We were treading water with MAF and hoping to find some land, but whatever direction we went, we just stayed in one spot. Once we took a step back, looked at where we were at and listened closely to God, a ship appeared to take us in a different direction.

God's confirmed in us over and over again that taking a break was the right thing to do. He provided Eric with a job that he enjoys, provided us a house to rent and provided mom's groups in the area for me to get involved with right away. On the weekends we worked on the house in Oregon for the most part and Jenna proved to be a great little road trip traveler. Thank the Lord for that! We were fretting about what to do about a Realtor and who to choose and God had a guy call us from a company and offer to sell our house. This was a company we hadn't paid much attention to, but we realized we'd heard their advertising a lot on the radio and had seen their signs around. How amazing that God provided that for us?

We listed our home mid-september and here we are at the end of October and God provided a buyer who is interested in our home! We are in the closing process right now and would love your prayers that things go smoothly. When the e-mail came, we could hardly believe it, but we knew God had a hand in it as He does everything.

Around this same time we feel we've found a church up here that we can call home. It may be confusing to some, because we started going to another church, but God keep nagging us to try this other church that Eric's coworker goes to. So we prayed about it and went in asking God to confirm if this was the place He wants us to be. In the first few minutes we knew God wanted us there. The people were warm and welcoming and understood our desire to be involved in global ministry. Eric is getting plugged in and I've been to a women's event. At that event God spoke in little ways through the women that were there to help confirm in my heart that this is where we are supposed to be regardless of what happens in the future, and that's enormously comforting.

People ask us if we're going to continue with MAF, the answer is that we don't know. Right now we're taking a break for one to two years or more to focus on our walks with God and work on a few things. We know that if it's the Lord's will for us to serve with MAF, we will. If He has another ministry in mind, then we'll serve there. It's our hope and desire to grow so strong in our walks with God that we're open to serving in the moment, wherever He leads us. But things take time.... we want to give God all the time He needs to shape us into who He wants us to be. :)

In the meantime, we're extremely thankful for how He's provided for us and it's showing us that walking by faith is vitally important. A lot of times we want to have things figured out, we need to realize that God's already got things figured out. It's up to us to follow Him wherever He leads.

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