5 days left...!!!

it's true - five days from now we'll be driving to Chicago to catch our plane! yep, friday night. it would be true to say, i am very excited. but still surprisingly calm! (and i THANK YOU for that, Lord!) today was our last morning in church for possibly six weeks - wow! i can't imagine being away from there for that long...so glad for email and skype and all that which will help me to feel close to all those we love here.

by now, i'm sort of past checking blogs, researching things, even reading my books or learning new kazakh words; i'm just ready to go. well, not literally-- haven't begun packing other than the little piles in the baby room; we are home the next three nights though, so i hope we can get a lot done. today i put up a few little christmas trees and some lights so that it will feel like Christmas when we get back. :-)

pastor dave preached about pride/humility this morning, and he had asked me to share a little about my own journey in that regard over the past year. it gave me a good opportunity to think back...the last trip was a humbling experience in so many ways ...all we'd been getting ready for and talking about for so long just didn't happen. and you can explain what happened or why you made the decision you did, but somehow, you never really know what everyone thinks or whether they think they would have done something differently; and in the end, you just have to let that go. you can't "defend" yourself, and shouldn't even try. i hope we live in such a way that we test our decisions against our understanding of God's will at the time, and that we have peace in that--what more can you do, really?

(i still hope that at some point God will allow us to use this experience to help some other family who is walking through the pain of disappointment. i believe that will probably happen.)

trust. we have had to trust that God knows best for our lives...that He leads in everything, even in that which makes no sense at the time or that which takes you through some your hardest days. and now that we're on the other side of this wait, and our hearts are once again filled with hope, it is easier to say "it was worth it", that in fact, it's been good. what we've learned, what He has shown us, how we've learned to trust more and release control to Him was worth it. and it was worth believing that we could have a second chance...that our agency, our coordinator, and the country of K-stan would give us another opportunity. i feel reaaaally blessed right now.

i guess there are no more guarantees this time around...none of us really knows how things will turn out...but living with hope and trust is so much better than living without it. we know that whatever God has in store for this family will be good. 

OK. rob's playing games on the new droid phone that he'll be using to keep in touch with his work, and i'm getting hungry. it's our last "relaxing" sunday night at home for a while. i'm gonna go round up something to eat, maybe we'll call some family or some of our friends from our previous trip to k-stan (we love you guys!) and then probably watch Nature, our usual sunday night routine...

i wonder, how will our routines look in a few short months from now??? i know it will be so different, but, i say with a smile--i'm really looking forward to finding out.

i'm ready to meet this Little Guy.

goodnight everybody. :)