Get that ball rolling

         In late spring the kids and I tagged along with Daddy to his pastor's conference. We love going along because it's a small free vacation, albeit without Daddy because he's in conference all day. The kids and I enjoy relaxing in the hotel and sometimes exploring local museums or kid centers. This hotel happened to have an indoor pool with floor to ceiling windows all along one wall that looked into the hallway directly outside the room where the pastors were all having the presentations. They often left the doors open into the hallway so that as I sat watching the kids (and holding my five month old), I could also peek into the conference room. And, when Daddy had breaks, he could wave into the pool and come in to see how we were.

It was during one of these breaks that he told me he was sitting next to one of his classmates from his DMin program at the seminary. This classmate happened to be deliberating a call, two actually (three if you count his then current call). One of them was to overseas missions. My husband was completely engrossed in this conversation and in hearing every detail of this classmate's application process and then contemplation. His classmate happened to be really struggling with his overseas call because he had gone through the months-long application process and, after all of that, how does one then turn down the call even if it is not right? But, as Adam talked about his friend's struggle, my husband was strangely excitable. I was too busy tending to 5 kids in a hotel to pay much attention so I listened to him go on about missions the entire conference, it was a fun break from normal kid conversation, to talk about adventures unknown while out of town.

We went home and life returned to normal, or so I thought, but that week is what I look back on as starting the ball rolling on this crazy adventure we've been on since that week in early spring. (Though, if I'm being honest, a lot longer than that because of all the people that had approached my husband about this over the past three to four years.)

Fast forward 7 months and my husband is currently deliberating a call to Africa. I won't give specifics here because this is a public blog, but this is an adventure I never in a million years would have ever, and I mean EVER, pegged for myself.

This call is the hardest thing we have ever had to decide. It is downright heart wrenching to think of leaving our church, and the members have reciprocated the same feelings during this time of contemplation. And yet, we cannot ignore the ways God has worked during these months of talks with regional missions directors and the work God is doing in foreign lands. I see the gifts and talents my husband has, and I look at his two calls, and I find myself thinking I wish we could do two things at once!

We have been deliberating his two calls (the one we currently serve and the one overseas) for a little over a month already. Missions is being very patient with us and we have another two and a half weeks before we have to give our decision. We are hoping to have an answer before that because this deliberating stuff is like waiting to go into labor while 40 weeks...or..maybe it's like being STUCK in labor!! It needs to end. Will we continue to live our lives here in a beautiful city in America where life makes sense and we have more blessings than we could ever thank God enough for, or will we embark on the journey of a lifetime to perils unknown...with our 5 boys in tow? Lord have mercy and guide us!