Bienvenidos!

I still can't believe I'm sitting here writing our first blog post on our first website for our first missionary term.  I can remember a time when I thought this season would never get here soon enough!  

As mentioned in our "about us" section, Noah and I both have felt a desire and calling to become missionaries since a very young age.  It was something that continued to resound in our lives and beat in our chest no matter what season of life we were in.  There were many years for me specifically that were filled with frustration as I maneuvered and pursued this calling, but to "no avail".  Or so I thought.  

Isn't it funny how we say we trust God with our whole lives, yet we live not trusting the details in which that life is being formed?  I wasted a lot of time thinking I was wasting time.  Fortunately God is God and I am not (I think we can all be thankful for that for MANY different reasons), and He really did have an ultimate plan.  I had a LOT of growing to do... and trust me, it hurt at times.  But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Someone extremely wise said the other day:

"You can't force it.  It has to be God.  Because when it gets hard, you know that you know that you know that this wasn't just your idea".

So far we are in the Honeymoon Stage.  We just got back from 3.5 weeks of training, and though exhausted, we're jumping at the bit to get going!  And if this journey never gets hard, hey, I'll take it!  But I highly doubt that everything will go smooth.  That's just not life.  But I hope I always have this underlying joy at how this time has *finally* come.  How our life calling and dreams are unfolding before our very eyes.  And I mean that... GOD is unfolding it.  We are listening, obeying, and following, but it is He who is creating it all.  

I hope that in all the posts to come that we can not only update you, but share what God is doing in our hearts and challenge you as well.  When life is about us only, it ceases to be fruitful.  So I leave you with this thought:

What is it that you feel like God has called you to, an unfulfilled dream, a notion that doesn’t leave your side?  The impatient part of me hopes that for your sake He will bring it to fulfillment sooner rather than later, but on this side of things I know that His timing is beyond perfect.  Noah and I both still walk around with hidden (and not so hidden) dreams and desires that we’re still waiting to pass.  A fulfilled calling or dream does not fulfill life.  Only God Himself can complete me.  Our role as missionaries is a fulfilled dream, but there’s still a God that I’m earnestly needing to pursue, and not for the blessings or gifts that follow. 

“I am here not to realize myself, but to know Jesus.  In Christian work the initiative is too often the realization that something has to be done and I must do it… His (our) aim is to secure the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances he (we) is in”

-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 11

"The man who has God as his treasure has all things in One.  Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness.  Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight.  Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever." 

AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God