Change, Not for the Weak of Heart. Change, Good for the Soul.

Our family has seen its fair share of change this year.  Some good.  Some hard.  All in all, it has be a year of transformation. 

God blessed us with our fourth child this year.  Our son’s presence brought along an awareness of God’s call to take up the Gospel of Jesus to the world around us and in a new, profound manner, to crusade for Him and submit ourselves, our family, and our resources daily to His desires.   In turn, we fell in LOVE with Ethiopia, her people, and her culture in spite of her poverty.  Her hope gives us hope.  Thus, we’ve focused most of our giving (not just monetary), outside of the church, toward Ethiopia- impacting the poor, the broken, and the spiritually needy. 

Loss has also revamped our family.  After 36 years of knowing a safe, steady, untied family, my father’s presence disappeared.  Not to death.  Not to disease.  To divorce.  To isolation and abandonment.  The woman, my mother, who used to be my stability, seeks security from us.  Our family is flexing, changing, giving, and learning what it mean to surrender hopes, dreams, and even our history, to the foot of the throne.

Trans-cultural families stand out in the South, in deep East Texas.  Transforming our family tree solicited transmogrification.  Boom, normal to weird.  As easy as that.  As though a spell was cast and the once white, typical-suburbia family shifted to “those people we just never really knew.”  This is a cost we are glad to pay.  We’ve become comfortable with staring and questions.  We relish the difference because in it is the obedience that brings joy we could never have imagined.

We’ve learned a family of six doesn’t grace other families with “drop in” company often.   Six is difficult to accommodate with out planning.  Six can seem like sixteen.  Six can make you sick of cooking, cleaning, laundry, and dishes.  Six seems satisfactory, but eight sound exceptional! 

Change.  We’re ready for the next round.  Change!