“The life of a Christian is an education for higher service.” - Corrie Ten Boom.

After a six hour surgery, it’s been a week of recovery but I’m feeling quite good now. It will be a while before I’m 100%, because hormone levels need to regulate. But pain and tiredness, though not disappeared, are so much better.

Today we ran a few errands, getting me out of house for the first time since surgery (not counting the hospital visits). The air is crisp and cool and the blue sky is amazing. We decided to take a little drive through some back ways to enjoy the fall colors while the kids doodled in their fall journals. The leaves were gorgeous; falling, streaking and cavorting across the roads and back into another set of woods, driven by furious winds. After a while I curled up and napped in the car as the kids listened to a story about the composer Mozart.

This day of resting, enjoying Him, and being with each other may have something in similar with other days before us. We need to spend probably a month to two more here in the States for healing and hormone regulation. So this week is a time of prayer for us, seeking God’s thoughts for how we spend our coming time in America. Since the first days of contemplating this HMA, when we decided on six weeks, the plans have changed many times . . . .

It started as a sprint, traveling up and down the coast visiting families, friends and churches, barely breathing sometimes between speaking, shopping for Uganda, and taking-in America. Now we’ve realized that this was really a marathon. Our pace has slowed and we’re committed to finishing well, finishing in God’s time, His way, via His route.

I guess looking back it’s easy to see that the search for medical care, for me, was a demand for healing so I could get back to my “real” life. Yet through what seemed like inadequate care in the first weeks of our stay, God was teaching me about waiting on Him, trusting His advocacy rather than fighting for myself, and patience. Having seen Him come through for me in the way He brought about this surgery with such amazing speed, confirmation and the perfect surgeon, has been a real eye opener. Oh yea, I can trust Him!! Silly coming from an African missionary who lives in the threat of danger each day, yet of course, there is so much of me that doesn’t trust Him. It’s another step of learning that He really loves me, is really capable of taking care of me, really has my best interests at heart.

All of this leads us to a peace about the next few weeks to months being spent here. A certainty that God is calling us to that whether or not it makes a lot of sense to our productivity-oriented American heads. We want to be more driven by our Jesus-filled hearts. And so we’re asking Him what He wants us to spend this time on, besides resting and recovering, and really seeking obedience in this.

We have confidence that those of you who support us through prayer and finances will allow us this time here in America, away from our “real work” because, as Tante Corrie Ten Boom said, all of life is a training for Higher Service. Being where God wants us to be is the very best place of all - - whether or not it looks like the most productive.

We are so grateful for all of your prayers, messages and love through our last week or two and so far beyond. Many of you have made us laugh, cry and thank God again and again.
In Grace, David, Annelise, Naomi and Quinn