above, Honduran Tarantula.  –oh man, I hate spiders…

So, I guess this is my first real post.  Not even in honduras yet, but thinking a whole lot about it.   It consumes our conversation (Heidi and I), and almost everything we are doing.  —  Spent the weekend moving out of our house, letting go of a lot of things, saying goodbye or see you later to a lot of things.

It has been a real process.  I was trying to remember when Heidi and I came to the conclusion that, yes, we were going to turn our world upside down, strip off all of our worldly possessions, postpone our american agendas, etc…   Heidi remembers it happening (ironically) on our vacation in Hawaii–what’s more ‘American Dream’ than a vacation to Hawaii?   To me it’s just been a blur of testing doors to see if they would open.  Could I leave my job?  Yep.  Could we sell our house?  Sure.  Can we homeschool our kids?  Well enough (we’re hoping none of them want to be engineers, or scientists or anything…).

So I would like to say that our family has just been kicking butt at this process…   The kids are embracing this, totally gung-ho to leave their friends and minecraft and hamburgers;  That Heidi and I are praying every morning and doing our devotionals, and practicing Spanish together every night, and tidying up our lives so that we can be the perfect little missionary family.     Uh, no…

First off, I think we have both come to the realization that God just needs us to come.  Despite all our fears and unanswered questions, He put this on our hearts and we have answered the Call.   He is going to take our small, meager offering of time and resources, and do something good with it.  He just wants us to be willing.

Secondly, as Pastor Van Horn reminded us this AM, Jesus’ mission was simple:  To extend Grace.  We have received Grace, and we are going to give Grace to others, and we are going to give Grace to ourselves.   We aren’t going to be perfect missionaries.  I am not the perfect doctor, I am far from it.  and try as I might, I’m not going to learn all the things that will equip me to be the perfect doctor (at least not in the next 2 months).  Heidi is not the perfect teacher (although she’s darn near the perfect wife–wink wink).  Our kids are just flat not perfect.  we are not perfect parents.  I think Heidi told the kids to ‘shut up,’ the other day.   i made Owen cry about something like not eating his vegetables the other night.   enter Grace.  we are gonna cling to Grace, and really suck the crap out of Grace, and just keep fumbling along, thanking Jesus for giving us Grace, and figuring out how we can distribute more of it to others.