Purging and Preparing

I have always enjoyed bringing my unused belongings to the MCC thrift store. I feel refreshed when I purge and I tend do it quite often. Lately we've been on quite the purging spree and while it does feel good to get rid of stuff that we don't need, this intense purging comes with some hesitation and a fair bit of sadness. It's hard to believe that for the next 6 years I really won't need my warm winter coat, my comfy boots, or my favourite wool scarf. And so off they go in yet another recycling bag full of my belongings. 

And come Saturday, our furniture will be off to new places too and it will be time to say goodbye to the only place our family has called home. I say this with a tear. I love this house, I love our backyard, and I love our neighbourhood.  I think if I were moving across town I wouldn't feel so attached to this place, but knowing that when we leave this home, we leave our entire lives in Abbotsford makes me cry. I will miss the time we've shared in this space. I'll miss having friends over for dinner here. I'll miss seeing Cody run to the window to see Daddy come home. I'll miss walking around Fishtrap and chatting with the neighbours. I'll miss our trees and our great deck. I'll miss seeing Cody play in the yard. 

We're not just purging for a move across town, we're leaving almost everything behind and with our suitcases and babies in hand, flying to the other side of the world. Seems a little crazy to me. But it's also exciting...  while this purging and packing and saying good bye makes me teary-eyed, the adventure ahead is something we've been looking forward to and we know it's where God has called us. But that doesn't take all the sadness of this intense purge away... pray for us as we prepare to leave our home, our family and our friends.

In only a month

One month from today we will be flying over the Pacific to start a whole new chapter in our lives! After a 14 hour flight with a baby on each of our laps (we'll see how that goes!) we will be in Manila and our lives will become full of newness- friends, weather, language, home, culture, food.... the adventure begins!

When we arrive, we plan to stay at a guesthouse for a week while we adjust to the time change and then we'll be spending a couple weeks meeting the Mennonite pastors in various regions surrounding Manila. In July we're spending time in Davao, where we lived 3 years ago- we are excited to reconnect with the staff at Peacebuilders Community, our friends from church, and many connections around Mindanao. We plan to move to San Jose City in August to learn Tagalog and build connections with the Mennonite Church there. And by Christmas we hope to finally move to Global City in Metro Manila where we will be living longterm and planting a church. So that's the plan for now.... but who knows, a lot could change. When we lived there before, I learned how wise it is to write plans in pencil because our life never seemed to follow the plans we had!

For the last month Darnell has been off work already but has been busy doing a lot of reading and housework (building a fence, fixing our drainage, drywalling the laundry room, landscaping the front yard, sealing the deck...  a man of many talents!).  We have been enjoying our two boys and trying to have as much friend and family time as we can before our departure date. Here's some pictures of Cody with some of his best buddies. In only a month, he'll have to say goodbye to some pretty awesome little pals of his (breaks my heart!) but luckily he'll be bringing three of his favourite buddies with him:)

Cody LOVES riding on the bike with Dad... he talks about the "biyoclecle" ALL the time!

Cuddles with mommy before bed:)

Cody is pretty cute with Makai... he loves giving him kisses.

Kolsen's birthday party... these 2 boys just LOVE each other!

throwing rocks and dirt into Cultus Lake this morning

hiding in a tree stump

Cody and Joel at Mill Lake... they were very excited about a boat and ducks!