We have been commissioned!

We have officially be commissioned by South America Mission for service in Pucallpa, Peru!!

The past two weeks at Candidate Orientation have been incredible!  What a privilege to be among such godly people with such a love for the Lord.  We have had an amazing time of fellowship, sharing and growing with the SAM home office staff and twelve other candidates to the field.

We have come out of Candidate Orientation invested in SAM's vision: Dynamic churches multiplied across South America that transform local communities and the world by embodying the Kingdom of God.

Our part of this vision will begin in Pucallpa, Peru where we will prayerfully be teaching at SAM Academy, a school for children of missionaries on the field.  There we hope to help develop leaders who can continue to spread the love of Christ around the world.

So now we begin to seek partners who will come alongside of us in support, financially and prayerfully.  Please check out our contact page and prayerfully consider becoming a partner with us.  Also let us know ways that we can be in prayer for you.

God is so good!  Thank you for sharing with us as we continue on this journey!

Ending Well

With so many things filling our minds and plates, sometimes in the midst of all the chaos all I have been able to mutter is “Lord, please help us end well.”  It has been our prayer these past few weeks as we have said “good-bye” to our  current lives as teachers.  Good-bye to our students, good-bye to our schools, good-bye to friends and colleagues, good-bye to a huge part of our lives.  It has been the prayer I have taught Ella as she struggles with leaving her school family as well.  “Let’s end here well.  Enjoy these days.  Make happy memories.”    

Ending school is just one closing we will deal with but it has been an emotional one.  Mike and I are both teachers and Ella is in first grade.  Callaghan Elementary has been my first and only school home for nine years.  Working at Callaghan has made me part of a family that I love dearly.  The teachers there are an amazing group of people.  Each one is dedicated to the children…not just their own students, but all the students.  They are a loving group that has your back when you need it.  They have treated Ella as family and started her off on a great path of learning.  I love each and every one of them. 

My little Junior Kindergarteners did not really understand our “good-byes” were for the long term.  They just hugged their teacher and stepped out the door a little bigger as new kindergarteners.  I will miss my “babies” so much!  It was not easy to “end well” as I walked out of my empty classroom for the last time.

But with endings come new beginnings.  As I close the door to my classroom, we open the door to work on the field, a calling that God has given us.  A calling to a life closer to Him.  This Sunday we travel to Candidate Orientation where we will get to meet other families with the same calling and affirm our decision to follow God down this road.  I am SO excited to take this step….so excited to begin our journey and watch the amazing things God has planned for us.  I pray this will be a time of closeness for our family.  A time for all of us to see the joy in the door we have walked through. 

So now I pray “Lord, let us begin well.”  Lead us and give us the courage to follow.

 Ella's last bus ride home!

A newspaper photographer captured my last group hug with my kids.  Happy memories!