We SO enjoyed our time in Spanish Fort. Although we did work, it was a really good transition opportunity for us… our month there allowed us to rest, adjust to this huge change a little bit and be around family. We even got to be there for the birth of our first niece, Ellie Rose!! We missed so many births, weddings, graduations and funerals while living overseas… we are extremely thankful we didn’t miss meeting Ellie Rose.
On September 7th (Labor Day) with the help of Sean’s family, we drove a U-Haul up to Montgomery… what possessions we have left went from one storage unit to another. We are staying in a missionary house, the same house we were in LAST year when I had Riley-Grace! We will be here until November-ish while we save money to furnish a house. We sold all of our furniture last year because “the plan” was to live in Turks and Caicos for about 4 years… I guess God had different plans! Maddy started 1st grade the next day at Montgomery Christian School and so far, she LOVES it. She loves her teacher, she is making friends and she seems to be flourishing… learning so much so quickly.
We were only in the house for a couple of days when Sean left on his first trip in his new role as Area Director of the North Caribbean… to Nassau, Bahamas. He had a very exciting and very fruitful trip. I couldn’t possibly relay it all from him so he wrote about it himself:
On September 10 I (Sean) traveled to Nassau, Bahamas to serve the CEF national board and staff through board training and ministry development. We saw God do amazing things! I traveled with Myron Tschetter (CEF Regional Director) and his wife Nita. The CEF national chapter has been established there over a 20+ year period, and they are blessed with numerous credentialed instructors and a great history of ministry led by CEF national director Dr. Willamae Miller. We spent some time with her at the CEF national office (pictured below).
This national board training was the first official CEF board training held there and we taught Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday morning. We trained 15 people (current and new board members). There are over 30,000 elementary-aged children in the Bahamas with over 200 elementary schools! With the open doors there in the Bahamas, this is a huge opportunity for Gospel-believing churches in those islands to invest in the lives of children and see an entire generation changed for eternity. As this vision was shared with the existing and new board members, you could see people get excited about seeing their nation changed!
We also taught morning assembly to over 250 children in two primary schools!
We also met with key pastors and governmental officials, and they want to do their part to see the children changed. The people we came in contact with WANT to do something about the kids! This was also seen greatly as I had the privilege of preaching at the Temple Baptist Church on Sunday. I give God praise and glory that three older kids were counseled as they made a profession of faith!! In addition, many people came forward and also up to me afterward saying that certain parts of the message really spoke to them about reaching their kids…parts that I did not “plan” on saying!
Myron Tschetter preached Sunday night at the Abundant Life Bible Church, who graciously allowed us to stay in their missionary house next door.
All in all it was a complete success of a trip. We were able to train and equip the local leadership in the ministry to the children of their nation. On a personal note, Saturday afternoon I was able to spend time with Tim and Mindy Seeley, missionaries with the Adventure Learning Centre and Camp. They are being used of God to make a huge difference in the Bahamas! You can find their ministry page on facebook here and this is a link to their missions blog here. As you may remember, I have recently graduated from the Moody Bible Institute and I took many classes with Tim Seeley online. Isn’t it awesome how God connects people! One idea that we had was potentially for CEF Bahamas to have CYIA training there or a CEF national board retreat there at the camp!
The night Sean was on his way back I had a scare at the missionary house. I forgot to lock the door after getting back from picking Maddy up from school. Later that night when I tried to lock the door I discovered my keys were missing. The cops came and a couple from our church came to sit with me until Sean came home. We barricaded the doors, made sure all of the windows were locked (only one was unlocked, in the girls’ room of all places!) and the police patrolled every 30 minutes throughout the night. At 2:30am someone tried to break into our bedroom window so the cops came to look around. Not 10 minutes after they left we could hear the window trying to be forced open again! The next day our locks were changed and all was quiet for about a week. At 9:30pm last Tuesday, I was getting Riley-Grace to sleep and could hear something going on outside… and the neighbor’s dog was barking. After a few moments someone tried to break through our window AGAIN. We have beefed up the security in the house since then and feel a lot safer but the whole experience has been unnerving to say the least. We are used to the threat of burglary in the Caribbean but we got a little too relaxed here. We are praying whoever it is has finally given up!
Other than that, we are enjoying our time in Montgomery, although we still feel like we are just visiting. It still doesn’t yet feel like this is our permanent home. Adjusting to life here hasn’t been a cinch either. We have changed, our friends have changed, our church has changed… everything is the same and yet different. We know it is a process and that it takes time. We are taking steps to settle in though… I started going to Bible Study Fellowship again and we enrolled Maddy in an Awana program. We may have found a house (we want to rent for now) and we are slowly getting our furnishings together. It’s exciting to see what the remainder of the year holds for our family!
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