It feels as if six months has passed since returning from St. Kitts but it’s only been a few weeks!
The day after getting back to Montgomery our family, including Maddy, came down with a terrible stomach virus. Immediately after recouping from that we caught a cold and stayed sick the rest of our time at home. Unfortunately we couldn’t allow ourselves much downtime because we only had a few days to pack up our house, put our things in storage and leave Montgomery behind.
All three of us had a difficult time saying goodbye. Montgomery is our home and although we are incredibly sure of God’s calling on our lives, leaving still broke our hearts.
The day before Thanksgiving we drove to Texas to visit my (Mandi’s) family. We had a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving! On Sunday we were able to visit a church in Spring, Texas. It’s amazing how the Lord works and makes a big world seem so small sometimes… Sean met the pastor of this church at a conference in Chicago earlier this year and we had lunch with two members who are the parents of a good friend and local pastor in Montgomery! We will be visiting this church each time we are in Texas for sure!
The next weekend we drove to Dallas (about four hours away) and had lunch with friends I hadn’t seen in years! We got to meet each other’s children for the first time and eat delicious Mexican food too. After lunch were also able to visit and stay the night with two of our supporters who moved from Montgomery in 2009. On Sunday we attended their church and Sean was able to share about our ministry in St. Kitts with a Sunday School class!
And of course, we celebrated Maddy’s 3rd birthday while we were in Texas! She had a “Princess Ballerina Party” complete with her requested chocolate ballerina cake!
On her birthday we took Maddy to Build-a-Bear (or as Maddy calls it “Hold-a-Bear”) at The Galleria in Houston. She got to wear her special ballerina outfit complete with a birthday tutu! After she made her ballerina bear, she rode a kiddy train and then ate at the Rainforest Cafe. We ordered the birthday volcano cake with a sparkler and the staff sang happy birthday to her! She had so much fun… she is STILL talking about her birthday a week later!
We left Texas and headed for Spanish Fort, Alabama where we will be until we move to St. Kitts… although we still have more traveling to do in the meantime. We will be in Missouri at CEF Headquarters December 14th – 17th for meetings and cross cultural training. On December 20th we will be back in Montgomery for Maddy’s three year old check-up and to move the last few items from our house into storage. Sean and I will also see a few people and attend the Christian Youth in Action Christmas party with the Montgomery teens. Afterwards we will be back in Spanish Fort for Christmas and hopefully will leave for St. Kitts shortly after!
Whew!
Please pray for safety as we travel during the next few weeks and please continue praying for all of our support to come in. We only need about $450 dollars more in monthly support to buy our tickets!
We are looking forward to being in St. Kitts more and more everyday!
Sean and Mandi- It’s so exciting to see you enter this new phase of ministry and faith! Praying for God’s provision and His grace as you follow him! It’s always scary heading into the ‘great unknown’ – but great to go where God takes you. Looking forward to upcoming posts! Love you guys!!