Dust Bowl Migrants

Southward

So Friday we leave the country. We are excited to be going, a little sad to be leaving – an appropriately bittersweet feeling. This trip to Honduras is something we’ve been praying about and planning since before we were engaged, and now we are walking wide-eyed through the open doors.

A whole lot of things have fallen into place

to bring us to this point – coming into fellowship with Joe and Rachel, growing with Larry, finding an affordable language school and cheap plane tickets, gaining English teaching experience at Esperanza, and more – but it is even more amazing how the Spirit has been working on our hearts to make them more patient, humble, and trusting, and less fearful, anxious, dark. Even this week we had some confusing phone conversations with our American coworkers about our living situation in Las Mangas, and were tempted mightily to fear and throw up our hands. But God has been faithful through his Word to remind us to trust him: we have nothing to fear.

In a few minutes we will be reunited with Joe and Rachel after 6 weeks of emails and phone calls. And in a few hours, Lord willing, we will be in Melbourne, Florida to begin conversations with our friends there. Please pray for good communication and unity in regards to our time in the river valley area: where we will live, what community life might look like, what sort of interaction we will have with our Honduran neighbors.

Pray too for our first month or so in language school in La Ceiba. One of our main goals is to become Spanish-speakers, and our ability to learn the language well will be a crucial step in becoming useful members of the community. This will also be a time of adjusting to the culture. Pray that we will have our eyes and ears open and that God will be our strength for the difficulty of that transition.

Lastly, we would ask for prayer that we would love each other well as we transition. It has been a great month of being together and processing our experiences together. In contrast to work in Chattanooga, when we had totally different experiences each day, we have been experiencing everything together. This provides for a lot of rich conversation, and we are thankful for the chance to grow together in this way early in our marriage. Pray that our marriage would be strengthened each day, that we would learn to lean on each other and protect our relationship, for God’s glory.

Thank you for reading and praying and being our friends. We love you.

In Christ,
Tom and Kelly.

Jesus said,
“If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever– the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

“A little while longer, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” John 14:15-21

Posted by tom at September 23, 2003 11:12 AM | TrackBack