There and Back Again

Our Trip Home –

Hello from Asia Pacific once again! We just wrapped up two sweet months back home in the States, savoring the memories and moments of visits with family and friends. After a short pit stop in Pennsylvania, where we got to see Tyler’s family & visit our home church, we flew west to California. Allegra’s sister got married there in August—after her fiancé’s long awaited (2 years!) American visa finally came through. We were so thankful to be able to be there for the long-anticipated occasion. That wasn’t the end of the festivities though! Four weeks later we regrouped to celebrate Allegra’s brother’s wedding—the final sibling to get married. It feels so good to have our ‘sibling puzzle’ complete! Our new in-laws come with stellar reputations and hearts that desire to serve the Lord. Congratulations to the newlyweds! With flowers there must come rain however, and we said our tearful goodbyes to our family two days later.

Thanks to those of you who prayed for our flights and who encouraged us while we were home. Fun fact: We got to ride on the longest commercial flight in the world – Singapore to New York. It was 18 hours and 40 minutes and the girls did amazingly well. They are becoming seasoned travelers and faced our 15 hour jetlag undaunted! Now we’re cleaning our moldy house (to be expected after sitting empty for two months in rainy season!) and working on renewing our expiring visa paperwork. That’s why we had to get back ASAP after the last wedding.

Getting back to it –

Now that we’re here again, we have some big unknowns to face. Since we left a couple months ago, one of the people that we needed permission from (to move to that village in the mountains) has now decided not to sign the letter we need. So now we are back in limbo… but hope it is only temporary because that person will theoretically be replaced sometime at the end of this year or early next. Lord willing the successor will be more favorable. We know it’s in our True King’s capable hands. (Sorry for the vagueness, just can’t give many details on a public forum.)

While God works out that situation we plan to make more trips to that area and also figure out our next move as a family. The house we currently live in is only ours until January; so we are asking God whether we should move to a town on the neighboring island that would put us in a more strategic spot, but would mean an extra transition for the family. Another option is to look into extending our current house contract here in the city though we would likely not use the house for the length of the contract because of hoping to move in to the village. To simplify the confusion: we live in the CITY and are considering moving to the BIG TOWN until we can build a house in the LITTLE TOWN where we’d wait for permission and a helicopter to move to the LITTLE VILLAGE. Not sure that really simplified anything…

We would appreciate prayer for favor with the new person and those final permissions. Also for God to make our next move clear and that we would be faithful in the meantime to reach out to our friends and little church here.

Praise:

• For a fantastic trip home and two beautiful weddings.
• That all our coworkers will be back from their Home Assignments by next month.
• That our visas should be renewed this week.

Prayer:

• For favor with the new person and the logistics of getting to the “K” people.
• For wisdom in our next move, and provision of a place to live.
• For faithfulness and boldness where we’re at in local relationships.
• For guidance and clarity for the periodic preaching opportunities at our church.

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but wait… there’s BONUS PICTURES!!