One week out from our departure....

Wow!  Time is flying and we are excited!  The time to leave on our new assignment is just around the corner.  The home is mostly packed, and our time is filling up with last minute moments with our friends and family.

We DO have a home as of yesterday, Monday, December 19!  We will be temporarily in Pahokee, FL living in a farming community.  Looks like I will need to homeschool, so pray for us all as we begin a new chapter in our lives and the kids' academic careers.  Continue to pray for our monthly support and those who will partner with us through constant prayer and monthly financial support.  We will need to continue to raise more partners over these next few months.

BUT today, I want to focus on the reason we have committed our lives to full time Christian missionary work.  That reason is Jesus.  Our story began many years ago!  John and I, on our wedding day, June 3, 1995, vowed to serve God and man for as long as we both should live.  John's schooling at Moody Bible Institute was specifically for Missions Aviation.  We both knew that our lives would be invested in other countries where Jesus' name, nor his hands and feet have not been shared.  We served for a 4 year term with Haiti in 1998-2002.  Since that time we have been raising our family and accumulating more helicopter experience for the sole purpose of putting a helicopter in Haiti. 

Without Jesus' love changing our lives so many years ago, we could not possess the love we have for others.  Our desire to make life easier for those who have a lot less than we do is something planted and nurtured by our love for Jesus.  We are lives that have been changed by Jesus.  Now using our skills and desire to serve, we will become the hands and feet to reach the physical, practical needs of others just because "He first loved us."   Being Technical missionaries, we get to use the modern day tools that we have been blessed with here in America and take them to those who NEED help, but have no resources like the helicopter can provide.

So as Christmas approaches, and you remember the first gift of Jesus as a baby in a manager, remember, His sole reason for coming was to serve man and to save us.  That Baby born so long ago had a purpose, and it was not to be known as the greatest of anything, but rather, to serve the least of humanity.  That is the kind of love that changes life.  That is the kind of love we want to take to the world.

Merry Christmas and always remember that Jesus is truly the reason for this season..... and the reason we love unconditionally everyday!