It ends the way it began

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and He said that it was good. In the end there will be a new heaven and a new earth. The end? What end? The end of what? According to Revelation 21, the end of death, crying, pain, and ultimately the end of humanity separated from God. This is the story, or at least the beginning and ending of it. There are many attempts to tell us of other realities but as is repeated in the Bible, only God’s Words are faithful and true. Where do you see yourself in God’s story? All of us, whether we agree with it or not, are a part of God’s story either as a willing participant, or as an adversary. It is easy to forget the big picture as we focus on the minute details of our everyday life, or even just the difficulties of the age we live in. However, if we zoom out and look at the scope of reality from start to finish we can see the ending of the story. Do we see each of our lives as its own story, or do we see that our lives are just a small part of God’s story? It is so easy to get caught up in and focused on the here and now, on what is going on in the world, or in the news, etc… However, our purpose is very clear when we see it through the lens of God’s story in which we are characters. Although we are only a small part, God has invited us to be a part of His story and privileged us to be the messengers of it. We may have a lot to think about during a day and at times it can be overwhelming, that is why Paul reminds us in Colossians to keep seeking the things above, or as the NIV reads: set your hearts on them. We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth void of pain and suffering where we will live in God’s presence. Sometimes I look forward to the wrong things like coming “home” to the U.S. or after a long day of studying and dealing with my kids just going to bed, but I am reminded to and I want to encourage us all to continue to look forward to the end of death, and the restoration of all that God said was good; A faithful and true good ending to this story that we live in.

New Family Member

Dell Mitchell Daum, weighing in at 6 lbs 12 oz is now a part of the family. The months preceding the birth were admittedly full of anxiety for us. We had not really felt that with the other pregnancies. Oh boy, do I want to tell you about our amazing God. When Cherie was in the last weeks of her pregnancy she asked God for a three hour labor, and down to the very minute God gave her a three hour labor! We have a very healthy baby and momma with almost no complications whatsoever. We are very thankful that God was gracious to allow us such a small thing that meant so much considering the ultra fast labor that Cherie had with Lily.

Visit to the Embassy

We just got back from our trip to the embassy in Jakarta. We put in our application for Dell’s passport and we are still on track for going back to the states this August. We are just waiting on a few more things before we buy our tickets. Just this morning we went to immigration as part of the visa renewal process. After we have Dell’s passport we can apply for his visa and then after that is ready we should be able to go back to the states.

Future Plans

For the rest of our time here we will be finishing up some language tasks and packing up our house. I(Eric) may have an opportunity to do one last survey trip interior, but we are not certain of that yet. When we arrive in the states our immediate plans are to get settled into our house and try and adjust our kids slowly to life in the US. Later in September we will be attending Cherie’s sister’s wedding. We are not sure yet about all of our travel plans once we are back in the states but we are looking forward to hopefully connecting with you all at some point. We would appreciate your prayers for us as we know this will be a stressful time, not just the trip, but all of the adjustments especially for the kids.

Thank you

We really appreciate all of you guys for faithfully giving and praying for us during these past 3 years. We are very grateful to the Lord for all of you. We are very excited to be able to visit with each of you in person if it can work out.

Below are some pictures of our family.

Pictures