For those of you who are joining us in prayer and fasting for Jonathan and David tonight, or sometime this weekend or week, but won’t be with us tonight in person, here are some of the requests we’ll be sharing tonight. Thank you so so much!
Jonathan (born Nov, 2010) and David (born Feb, 2011):
-Pray for their health and safety. As orphans in a country where so many children die so young (often of preventable, easily-treatable diseases), we beg God to protect their lives.
-Pray for their hearts as they have already suffered abandonment and several major changes in their short lives, that their hearts would remain soft and open to being loved – especially by their Father in heaven.
-For their nannies and their orphanage. It is severely over-crowded right now so pray for strength for those caring for so many children – that they would be able to love well as they are stretched so thin.
Adoption process:
-Pray for those in power in both the national and regional governments. Right now the regional government is not releasing children who were confiscated in the orphanage closings for adoption. They say they’re doing investigations on each of the hundreds of children this involves to be certain of their orphan status. Jonathan and David were both abandoned so we don’t know what this will mean for them.
-Once we pass the Ethiopian court, we and the boys still need to be approved by the US Embassy before they would grant visas for us to bring them home. There have been major slow-downs in that stage of the process as well, so please pray that the Lord would be working in giving wisdom to those who are making decisions, that they would be used of God to enact mercy and justice for orphans in Ethiopia.
Our Family:
-Waiting for the boys has been much harder and more painful than we ever anticipated. Please pray we would wait well for the glory of God. Pray we would not waste this time but, believing in God’s sovereignty, surrender it to him for his use.
-Pray for peace as we get anxious for the boys and for this process often. Pray for faith to pray and hope and be expectant, but also to be thankful for what God has given for today.
-Long term, please pray for all of our adjustment to being a family of 7. Pray for the girls, that the ways we are able to pour into them now would bear fruit in our family as we go through what is certain to be a tough adjustment when we add the boys.
-Pray that they would attach and bond well, and by God’s grace would never remember a time they weren’t loved and secure in our family.
Other Families:
Please pray for these families who have become very dear to us as we have walked this road together. Several are a step or two ahead of us in this process but facing similar delays in bringing their children home.
Trump Family – Waiting for Ruthie and Malia
Whitfield Family – Waiting for Jude
Meyers Family – Waiting for Asher and Hosanna
Jones Family – waiting for Judah and Silas
Kirkland Family – waiting for Aberash
Wills Family – waiting for Elise and Michaela
Hauret Family – waiting for Lincoln
It has been an amazing several weeks being in VA and PA, and I’m so thankful for so many friends who we’ve been able to see and enjoy some sweet fellowship.
One thing that has blessed me abundantly has been to hear from so many of you who check this little blog and join us in prayer. I am so grateful and humbled by you all who have struggled with us in prayer for so many things. God is so good to place us in this family of believers. What a gift!
We have seen the Lord work so mightily on our behalf and we give him all the praise. Specifically in this adoption he has provided incredibly in so many ways.
Would you continue to pray with us? We have all but given up the possibility of going for court before they close down for rainy season in early August, but we also want to pray boldly realizing that God can do anything. Please pray with us that he would work mightily to make that happen. We have had glimmers of hope that he is working to that end, and so we ask you to keep striving and praying with us.
We long for his will to be done and him to be glorified.
Thank you thank you thank you for joining us in prayer.
This is life on this side of glory – so many unanswered questions, living by faith and not sight, aching and groaning with the earth for that final morning, our full redemption. I love the words from “Jesus I My Cross Have Taken” that say,
“Haste thee on from grace to glory, armed by faith, and winged by prayer.
Heaven’s eternal days before thee, God’s own hand shall guide us there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission, soon shall pass thy pilgim days. Hope shall change to glad fruition, faith to sight and prayer to praise.”
But until that ‘soon’ – that glad fruition, sight, and praise – we hope, we trust, and we pray.
And so, faithful prayer warriors, I have something so close to our hearts I would ask you to join us in. Please please pray for our dear friends and their newest little blessing, Waverly Ann. Waverly was born on Mother’s Day, and last Wednesday was diagnosed with Miller-Dieker Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. We absolutely ache for these friends as their tiny precious one is in the NICU and they are waiting and hoping to be able to bring her home. They have a long journey ahead of them – one I know is a gift from the Lord (you only have to see Waverly’s sweet face to know what a tremendous gift she is) – and I know they would covet your prayers. Please join us in lifting this family before the throne.
Waverly’s mom and dad are dear friends from college, and their oldest, Kathryn, is one of Noa’s all time favorite friends too. You can read more about Waverly’s story here.
I can’t get my mind off my precious homeland, Japan. The news of devastation is heartbreaking and I know the news will only get worse before it gets better.
I hate that it is so awful in so many places, but I have to say I weep as much in sorrow as I do in thanks. My parents and brothers are fine, as are many of our dear friends that we have heard from. As far as I can tell, those we know and love in Japan are fine. I can’t stop thanking God for sparing them, yet my heart breaks for those who weren’t – unknown numbers of lives lost, all of whom have families and friends who aren’t thankful right now as I am.
I keep thinking of my big brother who was on the west coast Thursday night, and heard about the quake from the news. That would have been so scary – to sit and wait for news of our loved ones. I know so many are still…
My family is probably not sleeping. The aftershocks are pretty regular and scary. But if they are, they’ll awake soon to Sunday morning and will gather with God’s people in worship. My dad will preach – pray for words that minister to those who hear – whether they have hope in Jesus yet or not. Pray for Christ’s peace to permiate amidst the fear of the aftershocks and the devastation.
They’re heading to disaster zones as soon as they can. They’ve rented a truck and are filling it with supplies. Pray for the team that travels – probably leaving Sunday night – that they would be ministers of mercy amidst the chaos and pain and fear. That the Lord would lead their steps to where he wants them. I think my dad and Micah are going, and I know many others will join them… they hope to bring several vehicles.
Please pray for Japan. The reality is that Japan is a country that rarely looks needy on the outside. My prayer is that as many come to their aid in this horrible situation, they realize that their (and our!) greatest need is the Rescuer of souls. May HE shine brightly through the darkness of this devastation.
I can’t believe it’s here. Tomorrow morning Eric and I will leave the girls in the loving and capable hands of my parents and siblings and fly to South Asia. We’ll be joined by two good friends: a Japanese church member, Keiko and a team member who works with Eric at school, Andrew. We’ll meet up with our MTW Asia director and one of our dearest friends from college, who just arrived on this mission field for a two year term.
There has been so much that has led up to this trip, and it has been truly amazing to watch the Lord lead and direct, and move in our hearts. This is a vision trip so we are going to explore the possibility of becoming long-term missionaries there after seminary. We’re praying for hears that are open to hearing God’s voice as we see and experience a life and ministry unlike anything we have ever even come remotely close to.
I would love to share more, but it is late and we have to leave early. Plus, my glasses are broken and I already took out my contacts, so I can’t see this screen to save my life. I have to pull the computer real close every few minutes to make sure I am typing what I want to type 
Anyway, please be praying specifically for these things:
~Our family as we are apart. I feel like I may stop breathing when I think about about saying goodbye to my babies tomorrow morning. I know they will have a fabulous time at Baba and Gigi’s house (Noa has been talking about it for weeks!), but It is literally painful for Eric and I to be leaving them. Pray that we would trust God with them and be able to focus on the purpose of this trip.
~Safety. We’re not going to the most politically stable country, and there are also significant risks for physical illness. We have taken a ton of precautions and will continue to do so, but please pray that ultimately the Hand of God would be our protection, especially for my body and little one inside.
~Vision. This is a vision trip so please pray that God would use this to broaden our scope of what he is doing worldwide, and that he would be gracious in revealing his specific will for each of the members of our group. Please pray that we would come back with much to share with our church family about how God is building his kingdom.
Thank you! Can’t wait to share with you what we sea and learn!
Our family at the park this evening having "Super Family Fun Night"
…an update on our plans:
I haven’t yet shared with the blogosphere how God has blessed and led us for after these two years in Japan are up (this summer). So, if you don’t get our monthly prayer update e-mails, this may be news to you.
God has definitely used this time in Japan to call our family to long-term overseas missions, and so we are pursuing that. The first step, in our specific calling, is seminary so that Eric can have the training he needs to be a church-planter. We have been amazed watching God open doors for him to go to school full-time starting this fall, at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.
So, we have flights reserved to fly to Virginia on July 3rd. The girls and I will stay with my grandparents there, while Eric spends a week at the MTW home office debriefing and training for his new position as an MTW recruiter (his job for the next 3 years). We plan to spend a few more days with friends and family in VA, and then head up to PA for 2 weeks with our Noll family. We are really looking forward to this time to reconnect and just enjoy our precious families who we have missed so much. Then, around the end of July we will pack up everything that has been stored these last two years, and make our way down through VA and onto our new home in Florida. Eric will begin a four-week course of Pre-Greek on August 3rd.
Since we will continue working for MTW in this new capacity, we are still dependent on the support of individuals and churches for our cost of living. It is kind of a crazy place to be, support raising once again, and watching God provide for our needs for this next important stage of ministry for our family. It has also been a step of faith because we are required to commit 3 years of missionary service for every 1 year of seminary that we do through MTW. So, after much prayer and wisdom from others, and affirmation from the Lord, we have pretty must committed the next 12 years of our lives. We still don’t know where that will be after these first 3 years, but are praying and seeking God’s will to that end.
Which leads me to another exciting thing I don’t think I’ve shared yet. Eric and I are going on a vision trip at the end of this month to a country in South-East Asia with two other potential missionaries (one, a close Japanese friend) , and our MTW Asia director. MTW is just now starting a team in this country and we are going for a week to get a vision for what God is doing there, and to explore the possibility of perhaps pursuing long-term church-planting there. We are thrilled about this opportunity, and excited for another chance to see how God is building His church worldwide. We are also prayerful that He will be clear in His leading as we really have no idea right now if this is where He wants us or not. I will share a little bit more about prayer requests as the time gets closer.
All of that to say, we are in a very transitional time of life right now. I have begun packing boxes and recruiting summer mission teams to take them back to America for us to save on shipping. Eric is working on assessing our support needs and raising support for this next stage of ministry. We are looking for a place to live in Orlando, and trusting God will provide just the right home for us. We are figuring out the logistics of moving a household worth of stuff down the East Coast. We are trying to plan our short time in VA and PA so that we can see and share with so many who we love and who have prayed for and supported us, as Florida is a long way away from those “home states,” and we don’t know when our next opportunity will be. And amidst all of this, we still have a very busy and full life here in Japan. The school year, both at CCSI and for the college students, doesn’t end for a while yet, and so ministry and life continue in full-swing. It’s hard to think about saying goodbye, and yet we must start at some point in order to not overwhelm ourselves in the last few days of craziness.
To be quite honest, this is a hard place to be. I really am so excited about our future and so certain that God has led in every one of these details. Still, I feel “snuck-up-on”, like this move is all of sudden staring me in the face and I don’t know where it came from. Didn’t we just get here?? Of course the hardest part is thinking of leaving my parents and siblings. This time of living so near to them has been better and sweeter than I could have imagined (I never dreamed I would live with my husband and family close to my parents, as, hello, they live in Japan), and there is no small amount of ache in imagining them so far away once again, especially as they have become such a normal part of the girls’ day to day life. On top of that, there are so many precious people, both team members and Japanese, who have enriched our lives in so many ways and who we will miss dreadfully. Truly, this weight of sadness in leaving is only a testament of how good God has been in making our lives so full and sweet here.
Another whole dimension of my sadness is in the uprooting of our girls. I am reading a great book on “Re-entry” and learning about how important it is to help them through this incredible transition. Martha is still quite young to be greatly affected, or to remember more than a few days past, but I am anxious about Noa. I know she is still very flexible as she’s so young, but my anxiety mostly comes from wanting her to remember this special time in her life, and the people who have made it so. Noa knows that we are going to America, and often talks about the many people she will see there and going to “Grammy’s house” and “Grandma and Grandpa’s house” and, most recently, “Laura’s house” where she can “hold the puppy Taz”. She also thinks every plane we see is going to America. It is a hard balance because I want her to be excited about what’s ahead, but I want her to treasure and enjoy her last weeks here, as this trip to America will not be like our trips last year, where she got to return “home” at the end of them. This trip will entail a lot of transition, and I think it will be a while before any of us feel like we are at home again.
So there you have it. It wasn’t meant to be that long, and I certainly wasn’t going to try to explain how emotional all this wonderful change is making this 20wks prego-mama. Oh well. Now you know. If you think of it, please pray for all of us in the weeks ahead. And for that matter, the years ahead as we begin this new exciting journey as a family in seminary. It is sure to be an adventure!
