GOD is....

GOD At that last moments of my family's goodbyes, in the midst of messy, ugly cries on every face, holding and comforting one another with more tears, my dad said the words: "Its what we live for…" ... to glorify our Father in heaven with obedience even when it is hard ... to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind … to love so hard that it hurts so bad … to love so deeply that when it comes to saying goodbye our heart groans in agony … to love so transparently that we suffer in sobs, tears, and cries in our last moments together We all feel great heaviness, but we also feel HIS heavy presence and have great assurance that we will know him greater and deeper than what we ever could have before. We feel that through leaving family, our greatest source of joy has been stripped away from us, and we have anticipated God's urging to fill this painful void. To leave family is the greatest sacrifice I have ever made to the Lord. We loved and were loved well, and it hurts because we never held back. It is a pain that is soothed by a stronger embrace, when tears turn to gut wrenching sobs, when we stop pretending that it doesn't hurt and instead mourn over the real loss we are experiencing. Christ wants to be our all in all. And to be perfectly honest I admit that at times I have placed family as primary and him secondary. He knows very well when we have other "things" before him, and he is ready to knock the feet from under us and catch us in his arms. GOD is GOD! The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. (Psalm 33:13-17 ESV)

Good We have been given so many good gifts from the Lord! - Irreplaceable training from MTI in CO (visit here for details) - The most wonderful, spiritual, Godly, mature parents: who let us destroy their home and schedule for months and never complained ONCE! - The BEST hard goodbye with family I could have ever prayed for - A team that loves us and is waiting to welcome us to our new home - Countless friends and family that have made us feel so LOVED and cherished in this time of leaving. We are so grateful for them!

Faithful In January 2012 Brett and I signed a 3 year commitment to our organization, Growing Entrepreneurs International, based in Chaing Mai, Thailand, which is LITERALLY EXACTLY half way around the world (I dare you to look at a globe, place one finger on Illinois, and the the other Thailand, you will see for yourself!!). In March, we went to a Boot Camp for Support Raising, and we hit the ground running mid-March. In June, we had our 2nd child, Zion Rue, at home (to experience being out of the comfort of our hospitals, more prep for Thailand) and we reached our 60% goal in support raising. We had one more set of Thanksgivings, which included the legendary football game of the Steffen Family, and one more set of Christmas', which included one last legendary duo of Andy Hoerr and I singing "Baby It's Cold Outside". And finally, on December 18th, ONE DAY before we moved out of small abode on Thrush Ave (horrible street name), we received word from one of our supporters that they want to increase their support to the exact amount we needed to be at our goal for support raising! A miracle moment! God is so FAITHFUL... is he not?

PLEASE PRAY>>> FLIGHT IS TOMORROW MORNING!!!- Pray that the children would sleep, that the person that issupposed to sit next to Obie will not want to sit next to him, and that the children would stay healthy the whole time. (And that all poopy diapers would occur on the layover) :). Well God has certainly already proven himself faithful to us COUNTLESS times (as testified to above). So we can be certain that he can provide for us the HOME he wishes to give us, including the neighbors he would ordain for us to have. We are especially prayerful that the HOME is fit for our kids, our future guests (that's you!), and Liv's sanity! Emotional stability. We have gone through so many heart wrenching changes in the past few days, and we have so much to face. Pray for God to be our strength as we continue to live in CHAOS the next month.