Making a Home Wherever We Are

The month of May this year marked our third trip across the ocean in the last 9 months- and this trip was definitely not in my plan for the year. After being back in the Philippines for only 5 months, the Lord directed us back to the states for Josh to help with the rebuild of the helicopter that will be shipped to the Philippines this fall. New Tribes Mission Aviation is located in the middle-of-nowhere-Arizona and the thought of moving back there was not at the top of my bucket list, so to speak. But knowing that is where the Lord wanted us, I packed our bags with the school stuff and supplies that we had just paid to ship over and hauled it all back to America. (If you can’t tell by now, I wasn’t super excited about this move.) Funny enough, I actually really like my home in the Philippines.

Now, after being here for 4 months, I have been pleasantly surprised and blessed. We have enjoyed our time here immensely and the Lord knew that we needed to be here for a while.

We have worked alone in the Philippines for the last 5 years and I didn’t realize how much we needed some community and friends around. Living one house down from the best friends ever, sharing meals together at least twice a week, and spending most days together has refreshed and uplifted our lonely souls.

The kids have friends to play with after school everyday, which they have never had. They have been able to attend AWANA for the first time and have a huge area to play outside to their hearts content. The community here is wonderful.

Josh has been so blessed having awesome people to work with and has enjoyed working on the helicopter and having a sense of need and purpose.

We live in a cute-as-a-button house that fits our family perfectly and I have enjoyed making it home for these few months. 

Since we have been here, the Lord has led us in a new direction- it’s so interesting to me how so often He does that in places that we originally didn’t really want to be. We will be returning to the Philippines in the next few months and moving to another island where we will be helping to set up the new helicopter program. Josh has also begun flight training as a helicopter pilot, so he will be able to fly on the field as well. We will actually have co-workers who “happen” to be our dear friends who are with us here in the desert. Let’s just say that God knows what He is doing.

So in the next six months, we will be saying goodbye to our desert home and our island home of 5 years and saying hello to a new and different island home.

Sometimes people ask us where we are from and as a missionary, that question is so frustrating. My daughter once said, “Well, I was born in Missouri, but I’m from Texas, but my grandparents live in Colorado, and I live in the Philippines, but right now, I’m in Arizona.” Yeah, pretty much.

But you know…it has been made very real to us and our children, that this world isn’t our home. Heaven is. And all the moving around and having a lot of homes, makes us long for heaven more. And if moving around and making a new home wherever we are enables others to hear about the saving grace of our sweet Jesus and our eternal home in heaven, then it is a small price to pay. Besides, it is an awesome and grand adventure, this missionary life. And we are so excited to follow our God where He leads us next.