Update & Lessons Learned
Update on the Big Move
WE BOUGHT OUR TICKETS!!! If you feel like I'm shouting it's because I am. As Anna of Arendelle once said, "I don't know if I'm elated or gassy, but I'm somewhere in the zone." We are wheels up June 6th. This feels real for the first time since April when our board advised that we postpone the move. Though, I am grateful for the extra time we have had to be with family and friends. And, since we are changing the visa we are getting, we actually have to learn the Dutch language to be approved. An extra year to learn a language is better than trying to do it all in 3 months. So ya, we are taking Dutch lessons twice a week and if me waking up before 5 am doesn't show my commitment I don't think anything will. Visa paperwork has been started and we have tickets. Over the next 3 months, we will be support-raising as well as hopefully finishing up visa paperwork. I'm just gonna throw this out there and we'll see what comes back, but if any over you know an international lawyer that wants to do some pro-bono work feel free to let me know.
- Carrleigh
What we have been learning over the Covid lockdown:
Daniel I think it is hard to summarize what this year has been like and what all God has been doing. I feel I have grown more this year due to all the distractions being reduced. Work as a teacher in 2020 finds new ways to both push you and frustrate you. I think I am overly focused on productivity at work and this year's results look very different. This year I am happy when I make it to the end of the day and I still have a little brainpower left. This year I have felt powerless when it comes to making things happen or things happening in my timeline. This is great because it pushed me back to prayer and trusting that only God can do some things. I think that in our culture it is easy to think you can be in control of everything. As long as you are willing to do the work to get there, the results will eventually come. This year that is not true, this year I have no idea what 2021 will look like (COVID) so I do not know what to do. I can only do what I feel God is leading me to do and trust the connection to Him. It is very freeing in some ways and in others makes me feel lazy. I do not think there is a single day that I wake up and my instincts are to run to God and the word. To actually pray and not just check things off a list, I love checking things off a list. This season I’ve learned to seek God differently in my time with Him. I usually look at the Bible and try to mold myself into what I see there. How does God want me to change? What can I do differently? This season I’ve realized that I’m talking about me way too much! I’m spending time with the creator of the universe and I think he only wants to talk about me…So I’ve started my time with him by just saying the simple verse, “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with your whole heart. I will be found by you.” Jeremiah 29:13-14ish It’s all about seeing Him, finding Him, searching Him out, examining His mind and His ways. Change is more of the byproduct of seeking God, as opposed to the goal.
Carrleigh
Talk about highs and lows. 2020 has been... You know I don't think I have a word to properly sum it up. I know at one point I sat talking to God saying "2020 was the worst," and all he said to me was, "But was it though?" It is SO easy to get sucked into the feelings and the ideas the world is throwing out there but truthfully if you look at life through the lens of "God is always good" and you look for what he IS doing as opposed to what isn't happening, you find life is pretty grand. Sure, I found it bitterly ironic that the first time we got to go back to church in person since we were in Amsterdam and the lockdown began was the same week we should have been back at Credo with our Dutch family. But so much more good happened than bad. We moved into our own apartment, Daniel got to be home with me and the kids for like 5 months (and none of us went crazy), and we are all still healthy. It has actually been a really sweet season. Hope and faith are choices. I love that because I chose hope (most days) in 2020 I get to see that faith blossom into 2021. Yes I am a control freak and I wish things had gone differently but when choices are taken out of your hands you can choose joy, hope, and faith or you can be an old curmudgeon.
Also, if you aren't watching Bluey on Disney what are you even doing with your life? It's hands-down the cutest/funniest thing on TV. Just sayin'!