Looking forward

Well, after our last post, we had some great friend call and say they would be willing to provide the rest of the air fare we would need to get to Haiti. The Lord is so Amazing! Since we commited to teach in Ellensburg, prior to the Lord providing the money to move to Haiti, we will honor that commitment and see what the Lord does. If we have learned anything over the last six months, it's to leave all our options open and let the Lord direct us where He will. If Ellensburg is not what He has for us right now, we will head toward Haiti, as that is where his provision seems to be for now.

I think so much about all of our family and friend who are praying for us and supporting us and imagining how crazy this must be for you as you aren't sure what is going on in our lives until we talk to you or post. Usually by the time we do that, things have turned into a whole different picture than the last time. We want to thank you so much for your patience and compasion as this ride may be more crazy for you than us, as we see every step that the Lord is taking to get us where He wants, but when you are a Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle, close friend or part of our church body. It is hard to get used to the idea of having your loved ones move far away to a foreign country, then get used to the possibility of them maybe not going, then throwing a whole other option into the mix.

Our lives go through very stable times and then crazy times. I think the Lord just wants to make sure we don't get to comfortable and forget we need to be willing to do whatever he calls us to, whenever he needs us to. We do understand, that as an on looker it can be very frustrating. We hope that God has given you the patience He has given us and that it has been a growing experience for you also.

God is so good to use the hard times to help us lean on Him and then He use that special time with Him, to teach us and comfort us. We pray that you have seen His amazing compasion and love, as we have over the last couple months and we will continue to see as long as we turn our faces to Him. May God bless your day and week.

We don't know the destination, but we've got a great travel agent!

Well, for any of you who love to be scheduled, have "all of your ducks in a row" and have a "back up plan". You should not read this post, it could make you immensly frustrated.

It has been a couple of weeks since we were blessed with enough money to go Haiti for 3 months, but we just needed enough money for the three extra plane tickets there and back for the extra 2 kids and parent. Our whole Haiti experience for the last 6 months has been a roller coaster of just trusting the Lord and seeing what he brings with each new day.

We first started our Haiti quest hoping to leave by last September. Then Tadd's brother got engaged and set a date for the end of November. We decided to stay for that and leave in Mid-December.

By end of December we did not have enough money to go and no one to rent our house. After a couple of weeks of waiting to see if we would be blessed with the funds to go, we decided no new funds had come in and so we needed to make a decision. We decided that since we had not seen the Lord's provision in the last couple of weeks, we would start making a move to stay hear and seek employment again. The next day our missionary friends we would be renting an apartment from in Haiti, called and said some missionary friends of theirs were taking a year off and wanted to store their furniture and let us rent it very cheaply. This cut a lot of the costs of moving to Haiti, so we thought maybe the Lord was telling us we needed to hold on a little longer and see what He would do, since He had helped us with this big break through.

A couple more weeks went by and no new funds came in and still we had no one to rent our house. We had thought that the furniture thing may have just been a coinsidence and maybe the Lord was telling us to move away from the idea of missions in Haiti. The next day someone told us they wanted to rent the house. So we felt maybe the Lord was telling us we gave up too soon and He possibly just wanted us to wait on him a litte longer and He would provide the money now that we had a renter. We waited another 2 or 3 weeks and still nothing. No more funds had come, so we decided to start getting used to the idea of staying here. The next day we had a huge financial blessing from some wonderful friends came in and that gave us enough money to secure a 3 month stay. We were back in the waiting, and figuring the Lord must have again, been trying to tell us to stay patient, He had provided the money to live there and He was definantly capable of providing the plane fare.

We waited another few weeks and in those weeks the Lord brought this Ellensburg opportunity to us and last Friday the Pastor that is helping the Ellensburg group out, called and said the group really enjoyed Tadd's teaching and enjoyed getting to know us better at the Pot Luck. They invited him back to teach on March 5th. They wanted Tony, (the pastor helping them out) to meet us, since he was in Israel when we went last time. The next day (of course) Tadd and I were talking and decided that the Lord must be taking us out of the direction of Haiti, as we have not gotten any further toward purchasing our plane tickets and He had possibly brought another opportunity in Ellensburg. Wouldn't you know it,Sunday evening some very Godly people blessed us with 1/2 of the money for our plane tickets to Haiti. God is amazingly good at providing for us and building our faith by showing us, we need to stop thinking and keep trusting.

Needless to say we are taking everything day by day and trusting that even though we don't know what lies ahead for us. The Lord does and as long as we hang with him, we will be where He is and that is the only place we want to be. I feel bad for Tadd and the kids as I am the one in our family who has always been so scheduled and such a planner. I need to know the plan and schedule what ever is coming up next. So I am so thankful to the Lord that he has used this whole experience to loosen my control on what I think I need to know and to build my trust in His provision and plan. I am just sorry Tadd and the kids had to go through my teaching time.

We will keep you updated as to what the Lord is doing, but know that if you feel left out of the loop, it is usually because we have no idea what the future holds either and the Lord has been faithful to help us be OK with that. Just last night I was driving home thinking if the Lord had allowed us to go to Haiti in September, like we had origianally planned or even December. For the origianl 6 months we had planned. We would have been coming home this month or in April. We would have had to leave with out our kids. It would have broken all of our hearts to have had them live with us like a family in Haiti for 6 months and then put them back in the orphanage and head home. I love how the Lord shows me these kinds of things, as if to say, "See I do know what I am doing, my plans are not your plans and mine are always better. I am so blessed to have such a great God who cares so much for me, there is no end to how many times a day he shows me.

Tadd though it would be a good idea to go a little old school with the pictures this time and show you our babies, as babies, for those of you who have not had the pleasure. I thought it was a great idea! Love you all! Enjoy!

Isaiah was mad at us (in the one below) for taking away his sunglasses to take a picture.

Can you have "God is Good" as your blog title, too much?

Our family was so blessed this weekend. We traveled to Ellensburg on Thursday and on the way down noticed Kenya was starting a fever. We debated about wether we should just turn around and leave Charity and the kids at home, since with Kenya sick, they would just be spending the whole weekend in the condo we were staying at. We decided against turning around because of time limitations and pressed on to the condo. Charity had been sick a week or two ago and it started the same way as Kenya's fever did, so we figured Kenya was in for the same week long illness. Charity was pretty bummed she would miss Tadd's teaching Thursday night and then the Potluck scheduled for friday night, then all this to just turn around and head back without meeting anyone down there. Needless to say we did lots of praying and when Tadd told people in Ellensburg that Kenya was sick, they prayed too. By 9:00 that night, her fever was gone and Kenya was running around the condo playing "doggy" with Elijah. (proof God is Good #1).

Friday we spent the day in Ellensburg with our friends Tonia and Trenton looking around the town and catching up. Then friday night we went to Paul and Suzie's house for a Potluck with some people from the church. We got ther at 6:00 and didn't leave till 10:30 feeling like we had just spent the evening with people we had been friends with forever. (God is Good #2).

We drove home and spent Saturday unpacking and getting ready for Sunday Children's Ministry at Calvary Everett. Sunday morning we drove to Everett and had a wonderful AM service with the kids, followed by the PM service at 6:00. Pastor Ken was out of town and had asked Tadd and our friend Nick (who is in ministry there also) to give their testimonies. Tadd shared about how he came to have a relationship with the Lord, and then he shared a little about our adoption journey. I was back in children's ministry, when a mom came back and said, "I am so sorry you have been through so much with your adoption, we are also adopting from Haiti". She went on to tell me about their amazing adoption story, it was so encouraging to hear that someone has gone through the same things we have and how the Lord has been so faithful to them also. (God is Good #3) Please pray for them also, their names are Chris and Kirsten Brady and they have been in the adoption process for a year and a half. Adopting 3, 3 year olds!!!

Thier blog is fireballbrady.blogspot.com if you wanna check out their adoption journey.

The Lord continually amazes us with how he specifically puts people in our path to encourage and love on us. He has blessed us this weekend with so many new friends that we have so much in common with. It is hard to understand how you can meet people with so many of the same experiences and know that it could only be God, bringing you together to encourage one another. Even though He does not have to give us those people, He loves us so much, He know it will bring joy to our heart to share with others and so miraclously, he brings your paths together. Thank you Lord for knowing what our hearts need and blessing us, by meeting those needs.

Here are couple of random pictures of Elijah in his new Gymnastics class, which he loves. Yes that is Elijah trying to get out of the foam cubes pit.

Also a couple, of the kids shooting hoops and playing soccer with Dad.