Finishing Well

Hi friends and familia, We miss you, love you, and are thinking of you often! I heard you are getting a crazy ton of rain dumped on you right now, which sucks currently but is going to make days on the lake a beautiful thing this summer.

So for those of you who have been following us through this journey of being in Ireland you may have realized that we are in our final stretch here. If you haven't, well then here's the big news, we are officially in our final chapter here in Ireland. Since we arrived in this final season, James and I have been chanting the matra "we need to finish well," ad nauseam. So much so that it became all we thought about, what we dreamed about, all we talked about and asked advice on. Slowly but surely, we were falling into this sinkhole of this idealistic expectation that finishing well meant everything had to go just so, just how we planned. It was not fun, and we began to feel ourselves kind of slipping away the past few weeks, into these machines whose one task was to "finish well."

But our God who is full of loving kindness decided to save us from ourselves. James and I realized that we were in a place of making ending well our everything, and so we began to give it to God. We laid down our expectations for how this was to end, we broke off the lie that it was all up to us, and began sharing our struggle with friends here.

This past Sunday we skyped with some dear fellow missionary friends of ours who have walked this journey with us every step of the way. We get to the end of the conversation and Logan goes "you know this whole conversation has been so easy, light, and full of laughter. It's been really different than all of our other conversations when we were working through challenges together, or confessing the things we were struggling with." And then he came out with this brilliant piece of wisdom that changed it all for us,

"you know I think that it's a sign of what your last 3 months are going to be here, ending is going to be light, joyful, and full of laughter."

We received it, and just like that the pile of bricks that were labeled "finishing well" that was tied to our ankles dragging us into this abyss fell off. We were free. Free to fill these last months with laughter, free for things to look differently than what we thought they would, free to enjoy every moment here.

So if you are thinking of us in these next few weeks or months, know that this is what we are believing for in this final chapter in Ireland. There are things that have yet to fall in place here, a huge one being finding the next worship leader, and we'd love for you to be praying for that with us as well.

In the midst of it all though, even the unknown, this verse has been reverberating in my head "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." Luke 12:32

That's what I am receiving.

That's a short and sweet update on us. We love you guys!