It’s that time again. What time? Crunch time…for departure back to Europe!
Our time stateside is finally coming to a close. We’ve been working feverishly, studying intensely, traveling both collectively and individually over the last 22 months. We have navigated numerous family transitions: marrying and/or launching our three daughters into different arenas of adulthood, burying a parent, rekindling old friendships and building new relationships. And now, in just five weeks we’ll be on our way to the place we’ve dedicated the last twenty years of our lives – but with only our three sons in tow.
The plan is to be overseas for the next four years still basing out of the beautiful, but spiritually needy land of Belgium. We will continue to coordinate the Europe-wide ministry of Students for Christ (SFC) across the continent with an impetus to reach out to university students, collaborate with network colleagues, and partner with national movements. We also plan on plugging into the life of a local church in the community where we’ll live, homeschooling our boys and with God’s help raising them to become young men who love Him foremost and their neighbors as themselves.
But in the next few weeks, crunch time is upon us. There will be lots of sorting and sifting to do as we pare down to a bare bones minimum preparing to fit what we’ll need to take back to Belgium in two suitcases each. There is a vehicle to sell, insurance, cell phone and internet contracts to cancel. There are remaining meetings and services with churches and pastoral leaders. Christopher, David and Josiah are busy rehearsing for a final Christian Youth Theater (CYT) production in which they get to participate. We’ve already begun our final visits with so many dear friends that have made this itineration séjour such a rich time of connectedness. Indeed, these final weeks in the USA will be bittersweet – there is the longing to follow God’s call to other shores; there is the renewed angst of separation from so many whom we love and count a privilege to have in our lives.
Hello, crunch time! What other surprises do you have in store for us? Let the God-adventure continue!
