New Space

Yeah!  We are in our new house!

You have prayed with us through this transition, and we are so thankful.  Moving day, the 14th, was blessed by helping hands of both  little and big people alike.  We "sat on our suitcases" inside our empty house, with our wedding picture donning the wall next to the vine mural we had painted our first year (2012) and we remembered.  We remembered writing our wedding vows on couches without cushions, as they were getting upholstered, and the day we returned married wandering around the home with the freshly painted walls and our tie dye couches, marveling at our new lives.  We remembered children coming to Christ and our first party in the house where a Dutch colleague had a windmill cake.  As I backed out of the driveway in our newly fixed car, I looked at our home, the bouganvillia ready to bloom, the bushes with their purple flowers bursting forth and tears sprang as I praised God for the joy of setting in roots and the grace to see them bare fruit and move on to sink our roots in somewhere else.

Today was the perfect mingling of joy and sorrow in our new home.  I pondered with Zach after we took Daso to school why being here was so hard.  With running water and more stable electricity, with tile floors and trees all around, what makes it so difficult to be here in this new space?  While pondering this, I washed the dishes, my hands feeling the healing warmth of the water, did the minimal sweep of my floors, leaving them looking new and walked Zach out to catch a car to Abuja where he would board a plane for the US. Two hours later, 20 children came to play at the house.

 We played.  We made good use of the tire swing.

 We sat.  We related. We plucked and sucked mangoes. We laughed when the tether ball hit me in the face.  We played football soccer, small bodies flipping through the air when a goal was made.

And some of the struggle of the morning's doubts soaked into the green grass while the laughter of children floated through the moist rainy season air.  How many times did I long for a space where these same children could be free to be children. 



Today gave me hope. We are going to make new memories here.  We will set up boundaries for ourselves that allow us to breath deeply and go the distance for Jesus.  We are going to wait in his presence and expect God to do in us what he has planned. We are going to embrace this new space, set in roots, and rejoice in God's provision.

Daso and Mariama are growing so beautifully

 We will learn to share what God has blessed us with.

 We will take time to laugh together and experience new things!

 We will continue friendships that have become family.

 We will grow and be together.

We will celebrate with our friends and continue investing in their lives.

This is our first "party"...my friend had a birthday at the beginning of the month, and I had happened to make a cake for other friends who showed up 2 1/2 hours late for their own party!  God is so good!  So, I go to celebrate three friends in one night...in shifts.

 

And we will enjoy old treasures that may have lost their luster (like cooking dinner and clinky lids) like they are new finds! 

Please continue to pray for us in the transition. That our home will be both open and safe, relaxing and spontaneous, joyful and sacred.