These past few months can only be adequately described with one word, CHANGE.
On June 3rd, Caleb, our 18-year-old son, graduated from the American School of Antananarivo. We were very proud of him as he was awarded the president’s award for academic excellence. The following day we said goodbye as he boarded a plane to the U.S.A. to get a summer job and begin his new life as a college student at the University of Montana where he will be studying Wildlife Biology.
Caleb is a high school graduate!
In the same period of weeks, Becca, our 15-year-old daughter, was feeling the Lord leading her to apply for acceptance at Rift Valley Academy, a missionary boarding school near Nairobi, Kenya. (Can you say empty nest?) After much prayer and some real work from the Lord on her behalf, she was accepted and will start her new life as a sophomore at RVA at the end of August. While this change may be difficult for us, we are very happy for Becca. RVA is a wonderful school with a rich missionary heritage and offers her a great academic and spiritual environment.
We will miss the energy Becca brings to our home.
During this very same time, our national church held a vote and elected a new leadership team for the church here. This means that I will be working with a new team of leaders for the next 5 years.
In addition to that change, two of the three AGWM families that work with us here went home on a planned furlough the first part of June for their year of itineration? That was expected, but what was not expected was that the other family that we have been working with here was asked by AGWM to redeploy for a new strategic initiative in East Africa, this summer! That means that our team of 20 + people in early June, will be down to 3 by the middle of August. Thank goodness for Lorrell Beaber our short term MA who is here this year doing a great job in literacy training and development. If it weren’t for her, Tam and I would find ourselves with a team of 2. Since our whole team is either on furlough or redeploying, we will be moving across town to a different house so that we can better keep tabs on the Bible School and our orphanage. This means yet more change.
A team photo of our AGWM families and a Tanzanian A/G family all ministering in Madagascar taken in late May 2011.
Because of prearranged travel plans, Tammy and I have been apart for the past 6 weeks. She is in the States taking some classes for her teaching certification and I am in Nairobi, Kenya working on my Master’s Degree. We both will return to Madagascar on August 5th and we will begin to move on August 6th. Then on August 15th, I will be traveling to the U.S. to help get Caleb settled in at the University of Montana, while Tammy takes Becca to RVA to get her set up there. As you can see our life is still a bit crazy, please keep us in your prayers.
I will not kid you that this has been a little more than stressful for us having all this change flying at us in the same 30-day window, some planned, some not so planned. But we spent a lot of time in prayer and held on to Jesus. Now looking back on things, we see God’s providence in it all. With an eye on the recent church elections, we now have a year to focus on our new national church leadership team and help them to restructure the church, redeploy pastors for strategic church growth, expand their training efforts, and develop a vision for growth to help the Assemblies of God of Madagascar to reach every tribe and region of the island with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why we are here in the first place.
Had I been able to write the script it would not have looked like this, but God knew what he was doing. We truly feel God’s hand is in every aspect of what has transpired and have a real peace about it all. Please continue to pray for us as we labor with the Malagasy people and as we continue to adjust to all the changes that have recently come our way.
