Smells

Through all the frozen winter

My nose has grown most lonely

For lovely, lovely colored smells

That come in springtime only.

The purple smell of lilacs,

The yellow smell that blows

Across the air of meadows

Where bright forsythia grows.

The tall pink smell of peach trees,

The low white smell of clover,

And everywhere the great green smell 

of grass the whole world over.

-Kathryn Worth

January 14th Update

So this is it, the last stretch. Only four days left. I still can't believe we're leaving.

Emotions (mine and others), things breaking around the house, a touch of the flu, more packing, more cleaning...wondering what the future holds...

But I must choose not to focus on the things that are going wrong or are exceptionally hard. No, I must keep my focus on Jesus and not how tired I am.

I must choose between packing yet another box, or playing Dutch Blitz with my kids.

I must choose to remember, always remember how good and helpful and gracious people around us have been: in the last month, but also in the last nine years.

Remembering to pray for the people around me, to pray for friends whose wife got run over by a motorcycle and purse stolen in a muslim country (she's mostly ok), to pray for the people we will be sharing Jesus with...

I am excited to be involved in YWAM, but it is hard to leave here: a small community of people we recognize walking down the street or in the grocery store. A place where we have invested our lives in others and others have invested in us. We will miss this place. Yes the lake is nice and it's a cute town and the air is clean and the trees are great, but it will be the people we will miss most.

Update January 6

Today Joel and I signed the Purchase Agreement on our house!  A closing date is being set for Friday January 17th.
We're planning on packing up the moving truck Friday the 17th, camping out in the house, and then Saturday morning hitting the road for Rockford.

Thanks for all your prayers! The packing is going better than I (Renee) thought it would. *smile*

(I wish I could record Hudson with his squeaky two year old voice: "We're going to Rockford!")