Coming Home

I find this blog a little more difficult to write than the others.  As most of you know we have been experiencing many trials this past month with the culmination being an armed robbery.  We were robbed shortly after arriving in Mzuzu last year but all of us knew that the Lord wanted us to stay.  Even though my emotions were screaming, “go home” Andy and I knew it wasn’t God’s will for us.  Even the kids wanted to stay because as Sarah put it, “who will take care of the babies if we leave.” 

This time it is different.  We were hoping to come home early next year as being here as put a strain on being a family and we accomplished what we committed to do and that was start a crisis nursery for orphaned babies. In spite of the difficulties for our family we still believe that this was where God wanted us.  The robbery made things much different in the eyes of Andy, I and our children.  The kids are all very anxious to get home now.  Regardless of our feelings, we still sought God’s guidance and direction because no matter how frightening it is to be here sometimes, God has sustained and kept us and we want to be where HE wants us to be.  Going home and being out of God’s will is not a place Andy or I want to be. 

Our first dilemma was where we could stay after the robbery as they ruined our front door trying to break in.  Coincidentally (not really), friends of ours were leaving for the states the next day for 3 ½ months.  We stayed the first night in a guest house and moved into their home the following day.  We were told that we could only stay 6 weeks as another couple was coming from the states at the end of July and would be staying here.  The night we moved into this house the couple that was to arrive in July called to say that they couldn’t get tickets and wouldn’t arrive until the end of August; God had made a way for us to stay in another house until then.  That was our first confirmation that maybe the Lord was saying to come home.

If God wanted us to leave then there was one more hurdle to get over.  We would need to find 9 airline tickets the first part of September that we could afford.  We were very doubtful we could find tickets but knew that God in his sovereignty could.  Within a day of contacting a travel agent in the states we had 9 one-way tickets leaving September 4^th that was truly half what a round trip ticket would cost us.  We were shocked and excited but continued to seek God’s plan for us. After much prayer we purchased the tickets and they are currently on their way to us which is another prayer request!

The thought of leaving my nannies and babies is heart breaking and our leaving isn’t a “good riddance Malawi” but a truly sad occasion.  Our somewhat sudden departure has forced us to use the people that we currently employ to fill in the gap.  They are doing beautifully and have been such a blessing to us.  Our prayer and hope is that we can find a director for the nursery before we leave.  So far we have a few prospects but are waiting for God to show us who it will be.  My new supervisor continues to do a great job and we realize that God wants us to let go and trust Him with the nursery.  I don’t always remember that these are really His children and not mine and He will be faithful to them.

We are still trying to finalize Bridget’s adoption which is difficult when the social worker doesn’t show up to the meetings that you’ve scheduled.  Again, we can say that God will make a way just as He has with all our other adoptions that had their own set of troubles. 

Please continue to pray for us as have a lot of work to complete before we leave in September.  Thankfully we have One that we can depend on through all of this.

            Lisa