Time to dust off the old blog, because you just can't make this stuff up. We want to share with you a little bit about our home, our base now for continuing our ministry with Wycliffe. Coming to this home has strengthened our faith in a God who knows our deepest hurts and cares for our weak hearts. Let's start at the beginning...
When we started letting our family know that it looked like we would need to move stateside, they started praying that God would show us just where He'd have us. We'll never take for granted the way both sides of our family so lovingly walk us through this very difficult decision. In the midst of these conversations, my sister-in-law told us about this friend of hers who was thinking about selling her house. We had never considered the possibility of buying and didn't think it would go anywhere, but as we learned more and more about this house (while also finding that there were no good rental options to fit our price range and family), we felt that perhaps God had been preparing a place for us, starting a long time ago.
The family that it had housed for the last 10 years has 6 children. They were growing a little too big for the house, but considering they had survived in it with 8 people, we were pretty confident we could make it work for our 6. The house is basically a 100 year old two-story longhouse, centrally located in the town of Oostburg, and outfitted with a simple storefront. Living space is just about completely on the second floor, albeit for the master bed and bath downstairs in the back. What is the rest of the downstairs used for? Well this is where it gets interesting. Let's zoom in a bit>>>
With all of Trevor's migraines we have joked for YEARS that we just needed to have a live-in chiropractor. I would've never believed it if someone told me that one day we actually
would have a chiropractor practicing out of our downstairs (though he does not live there), but that's exactly what we have. And his prices and jovial disposition cannot be beat.
On to just a really fun reason we love this home. If only you knew how much our son loves trains. Well why don't I just show you? This next picture is of him on his "train" in Soytown several months back. Notice the "tchoo tchoo" arm.
Guess what runs right outside our front window? You better believe that every. single. time. one of the kids hears the "tchoo-tchoo" of a train, they yell "TRAAAIN!" and all go rushing to the window to watch it go by.
And lastly, remember
THIS post? And now I'm having a hard time keeping it together because as I went to grab the link for it I saw that it will be exactly 4 years ago that I posted it. Whew! So if you have time to read it, it will give a lot of insight into why this means so much, but suffice it to say that when we left for Brazil, I gave up my piano of over 20 years because I knew that God had asked me to for the sake of His kingdom as we began our trek to Brazil. I grieved the loss of what was so very dear to me. There were many times since then that I had wondered..."did I do the right thing to sell it?" At the time, I knew that somehow, at some time, God would fulfill the massive hole that selling my piano had left.
Friends, this piano came with the house. It came
with the house. And to top it all off, it was even left in our bedroom. It needs a good bit of work, but God put it there just for us, I have no doubt. Every day that I wake up now and grieve the loss of living near our Trawler and missionary friends in Soytown, I am reminded in an incredibly tangible, specific way that God knows our inner being better than we do, and He is so WORTHY of our trust. He is worthy of EVERYTHING. Going to Soytown was worth every ounce of stress, hardship, sacrifice, joy and pain. And so was moving back. We can trust the heart of our Father because He always knows better than we do. We could've never even have thought about calling a place our own without the help of some very dear people (you know who you are), but somehow, for this season this is our home. And even when we can't fully understand the way forward or what's happened in the past, we can trust that His way is always better. We pray that God would continue to use our family and this ministry (and this house) for His glory and for His purposes as we continue our journey with Wycliffe.
That all may hear,
💛 Sarah
