This is a picture of Zion a couple months ago, gazing at his cousin, Eliana...who he will leave behind. Her name means, "My G has answered" in Hebrew. She is Daniel's sister, Kerry, and her husband, Philip's daughter. Daniel and Kerry are so close. When we lived in Kentucky for three years, he called his sister every week, and they would chat like girlfriends. She is five years his senior and he has always thought she hangs the moon. I couldn't love her more, myself. And her husband is a wonderful, devoted man of God. Not to mention the kids' grandma, MoMo, and their great-grandma, SueSue. And of course there is Grandma and Grandpa in Michigan, and Uncle Kody and Uncle Jack and Aunt Denise and JJ, who will also be left behind."And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."
Last night, Daniel asked Kerry and Philip to be the boys' Godparents. Should anything ever happen to us on the mission field or otherwise, we have decided to entrust our most precious earthly treasures to them. They were absolutely honored. It was an emotional time. For that matter, it IS an emotional time. This is the hardest part of all of this. It sometimes keeps me up at night, thinking, 'Will the boys suffer very greatly because they are so far aways from their families?'
And then I remember the words of my dear friend, Laura, who is raising her two small daughters on a snow capped mountain top in North India. She writes, "Our children Kayla, yours and mine, will have a worldview!!! My children thank Dad for ELECTRICITY and WATER!!! They chat for the children on the streets they see. They know the world is not a suburban bubble! What I did not know at the age of 21, Sophia knows at 4."
So, chat with me now friends, I need it. "Dad, as we boldly go in 'ruthless faith,' as Laura puts it, bless our going. We desperately need your anointing, your provision, your Spirit. When these little boys find themselves on the other side of the world, may they know that YOU are their world. May they know that their citizenship is in Heaven, that they were put on this earth for one reason and one reason alone, to love you and bring you glory. May that knowledge help them understand why we've taken them away from family and country and...pizza. Comfort them when they cry for MoMo, when they long to see their Grandma and Grandpa. Comfort them when they are the only blond heads in a city of four million people. Make them strong, make them resilient, and most importantly, inflame their hearts with love for you. You are our hope. You are our everything. To you we commit our lives and our sons."
