And so it begins...

Rather than rewrite (and use precious brain power that with three little ones underfoot is sometimes hard to come by :) I wanted to share with you a portion of our most recent family newsletter...

January 2006… Gary, Nathan and I boarded a plane bound for Cochabamba, Bolivia. There was excitement about the realization of the dream we had envisioned now for years, sadness in leaving our families and friends stateside and yet a new life waiting for us here in our new home. If you had shown me a snapshot, a glimpse of what the next 4 years would hold for us, I’m not sure I would have believed you :).

(Send-off Sunday at Austin Avenue Church of Christ)

(Nathan and I at the Miami airport, January 2006)

We’ve grown as a family… in more ways than one, as individuals and as a couple. We’ve passed milestones as a family… birthdays, anniversaries, and the birth of two sons. We’ve reached milestones in ministry… establishing a downtown office for the team, finding and setting up a church location, witnessing the adding of new brothers and sisters in Christ, watching the body here grow in maturity as well as size, and beginning to hand over the church and its ministries to our Bolivian brothers and sisters. We’ve gained a second language, culture, and home.

This past year we evaluated our time here, the goals we had met, and our future plans. It was with much prayer and petition for wisdom that we made decisions about the coming years and what they would hold for our family. After months of prayer and planning, we as a family decided that this year, 2010, will be our last year living and working in Cochabamba. Gary and I both feel very blessed by our time and experience here. Our time as missionaries has enriched our family and our faith in ways that we never could have anticipated. We are so thankful for the opportunity we’ve had to partner with our heavenly Father in the work of planting a church here in Cochabamba. It has stretched our faith, pushed us out of our comfort zones, and shown us daily what an important job we as Christians have in this world to share his gospel and salvation. We will miss our church family here in Bolivia, teammates, friends we’ve made here in Cochabamba, and the life that we lead here.

We are also thankful for the opportunity that we will have to live close to family and friends again, sharing important milestones with them face to face as opposed to over emails and webcams. We ask for your prayers for our family as we make this transition back to stateside living. Please pray for our last year of ministry here, our travel back and forth to the states in preparation for our return, decisions we make about career paths in the states, and decisions we make about our family lifestyle. We pray for wisdom and constant guidance from our heavenly Father as we savor these last months here. He was so faithful in bringing us here to Cochabamba, and we pray that his faithfulness will shine just as brightly as we plan the months ahead. Thank you for your support of us as a family, of the ministry we’ve been a part of here in Cochabamba, and through those, the support you’ve given to your fellow brothers and sisters here in Bolivia. God bless you!

Having that said... this blog is going to be my processing place for the next year. I'm already starting to grieve the life that we're leaving behind here. I know that so many changes lie ahead for us, and not being a huge fan of change, I'm going to need a place to work things out :). Just wanted to give you a heads up... it's going to be a fun time of memories of what we've lived, with much anticipation of what's to come, but it might get a little emotionally sticky... I'm just sayin' :)