A New Year and Finally a New Post!

It is hard to believe it is 2013 already. Also hard to believe it has been over 3 months since we have updated our blog. 

On this day last year, we were both getting over the flu and heading to Colorado for 5 weeks for missionary school.  We knew we would be leaving for Kenya soon, but we still had no departure date.  Everything was so unknown to us and "being in limbo" had taken on totally new meaning. Transition was the best way to describe our lives.

And now, on this day, I sit in our home in Nairobi.  We are just a few days away from being here for 10 months.  So close to a whole year and that plane ride to Colorado seems like ages ago.  Without a doubt, the transition has continued.  And will continue for quite some time, but with it has come some settlement and routine.  This has likely been the most paradoxical year of our lives.  It has been the hardest and the easiest.  Filled with many tears and so much joy.  Full of challenges and accomplishments.  A great deal of confusion and normalcy.  More goodbyes and hellos than have ever been said in our lives (probably combined).  We have learned more about who we are and about each other.  We have been frustrated and happy.  Pick an emotion and we have likely felt it at its extreme.  It feels like we just arrived and yet have been here forever.  It seems like the more we learn, the more there is to learn.  We have learned dependence and independence.  We have learned shillings and forgot what dollars look like.  We have learned driving on the other sideof the road and the car.  We have learned exhaustion and energized.  We have done Christmas together and apart from our families at the same time.  We have learned how to make things from scratch and to be thankful when people send us food and other great things that we love.  We have learned that distance changes relationships.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.  We have tried to support friends who are hurting from afar and felt the sting of the many miles that seperate.  We have felt love from others like never before.

As I reflect (isn't that customary for the first of the year?) my cheeks are stained with tears (no surprise in that).  We are where we should be.  In the midst of the negative emotions we have experienced, we have experienced peace like never before.  We have been waiting to be here for so long.  And here we are.  We missed the holidays with loved ones, but God gave us people we love here to spend time with.  It was kind of great to be celebrating Jesus in the place He has brought us to share His love. 

We are overwhelmed with thankfulness almost daily.  Thankful to God for sustaining us.  For allowing us to be a part of this. Thankful for new friends and old ones.  Thankful for supporters.  Those who support financially, prayerfully, and through regular encouragement.  Thankful for our families and the way they make time to share our lives with us and keep us inolved in their lives.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  Ephesians 3:18

We are quite literally drowning in God's love.  All the time.  Every single second of every single day.  For this we are most thankful.  Our prayer is that 2013 is full of blessings for you.  May you be aware of how saturating the love of God really is.