Today we leave for our two weeks of “mandatory vacation”. World Harvest Mission, our agency, requires us to take this family time before deployment. This surprised us, but it makes an awful lot of sense. Especially now that we are in the thick of transition and notice how easy it is for our marriage and parenting relationships to get shortchanged significantly. So we are off; first to visit David’s parents in Pinehurst, North Carolina, then down to Tampa to see David’s grandmother, then over to Orlando for some “just us” time. God provided through a friend’s sister, the opportunity to take a four day Disney vacation!! The amazing story that goes with this is that a close friend of mine has been praying for months about this “mandatory vacation” and for God to provide for it. And for the first month or so she was actually praying that God would provide a Disney vacation. Then she mentioned that to me and I told her we’re not really Disney people, so she prayed less specifically. Nevertheless, her prayers both paved the way for this beautiful gift and for our hearts to be open to it. What a blessing for our kids to experience this slice of hardcore American life before heading to the jungles of Africa. Once again, God provides more than they give up (who would have thought that WE would take them to Disneyland EVER!). Of course the experience of Disney completely pales next to the experience of living in Africa, but it will still be really cool.

Perhaps I will be blogging more as we are away, or perhaps not at all. I have so many thoughts in my head that I’d like to get down here. . . .