Columbus Home y más

Looking forward to going back to my Columbus home. I am ultra excited about this year coming up. I am looking forward this next chapter in our lives. Yesterday I was listening to a message on-line and the preacher said that Faith isn't the absence of doubt, but rather it's the act of moving forward in the face of doubt and fear. Just because fear and doubt exist doesn't mean that we lack faith. I am ready to jump into the next phase of our lives that God has for us. I don't want to just go through the motions of life and never really live.

I hope to get more involved with the Latino/Hispanic community in Columbus this coming school year. I am excited to learn more about what God is doing in that area of our city.

This summer I have learned that God has given me a great confidence in speaking Spanish. I think I've been waiting for this moment for the last 14 years since I started learning Spanish. It's not that I've reached a point where I know it all, but I just feel a new comfort around Spanish speakers that I haven't felt before. I feel sure of my abilities and sure that I can communicate in a myriad of different situations without getting stuck.

I've also learned this summer more about being a good mommy. I've learned to involve Adah in what I do, and try to focus on her world and what she's learning more and more. She's 16 months old now, which is amazing. I still think sometimes how blessed I am to be Adah's mommy. She fills my day with so much joy and accomplishment. Having her here in the midst of so many people who love her too is a beautiful thing to watch. I'm going to miss the companionship of being able to walk out my door and have so much and so many people for Adah to explore.

Something else that I have realized is what a blessing it is to be a part of all that God is doing to save lives here in Rosarito and Tijuana. Through my service, people's lives are being changed. Although I'm doing the grueling and tedious background work the majority of the time, I am able to derive so much joy out of that because I know what the end result is.

Praise the Lord for another amazing summer!

Difficult for different reasons

So each week here seems to bring its own challenges. Isn't that how life is, though? This week has been rough because last Saturday we said goodbye to Matt and Amanda and Jeremy. Also Bill Drake was here last week, which was such a blessing. We had an amazing dinner at our favorite restaurant in Puerto Nuevo. They have tortillas the size of pizzas, and they taste amazing! We have one team here from New York, as well as two guys from Canada. Thinking about heading back to Columbus is starting to make me feel a little nervous, just because I know that this fall is going to be different for us, and what awaits us beyond the fall is exciting to think about, but it's also an unknown!

Adah is growing so much...today I think she babbled non-stop. She does this weird sound where it sounds like she's a motorcycle revving up, like "a-nun-nun-nun-nun." Then she makes another sound, "neener, neener, neener..." And she makes the sounds so loud sometimes! She is definitely going to be a talker. She talks to me all the time. Sometimes she's just babbling, then other times it seems like she's really telling you something, with the correct sentence intonation and everything. I think the thing that I need to pay attention to now is keeping my eye on her all the time still. Since she's a little more independent now, it's easy to just kind of let her do her own thing, then you realize she has a crayon in her hand, is unrolling the toilet paper, or worse, getting into some kind of trouble that she shouldn't be in.

We're flying home on August 29th. Katie is coming to hang out with us for a few days before we fly home. It will be great to have her help on the plane!!!

Holy moments

This morning I had the incredible opportunity of leading worship for the team of 11 that are here this week from New York. We held the worship/Bible study in the newly re-designed staff lounge. It was one of those holy moments for me, when something of heaven touches earth. We had people of Chinese, Pakistani, Cambodian, American, Canadian heritage there in that room, all worshipping in unison the one and only God.

"Missions exists because worship does not."
--John Piper