Randy's first post

Everywhere you go on the University of the Nations campus you hear or see worship! All over campus, throughout the day, there are people worshiping with all of their hearts. Softly, loud or really loud! It’s amazing to see and hear. Some alone, some in small groups, some in groups at large as six hundred. Some in English, some in Korean, some in Samoan and from time to time you may hear Chinese, Japanese, Russian or one of several other people groups pouring out their adoration to the living God in some language you may have not even know existed. It is absolutely one of the most beautiful things you could ever hope to see and hear! In some ways I feel like a kid peeking in a crack in a wall at a construction site, except this crack in the wall of heaven, where there will be worshipers from every tribe and nation and tongue! No one seems to grow tired of hearing this or of joining the worshipers. At times, right in our apartment, we can hear three or four different groups of people worshiping separate from each other yet strangely untied in heart and purpose.

KIDS' COMMENTS

September 28, 2009 I asked the boys their favorite parts about the following little stages we just went through, and here is what they said. *The packing time: Seeing so many friends one more time and Aunt Jo who came down, eating pizza out on the back lawn with friends when our dining room table was gone, and staying with Adin and Noah!! *Our first three days in Kona (at the Trendwest resort): Swimming in the lagoon by the mansions, eating Hawaiian shaved ice (Evan’s favorite flavor is blue bubble gum, Jo’s is butterscotch); seeing the dolphins, driving the glass bottom boat, *Our first few days on the YWAM base: Our new apartment, their bunk bed, the deep swimming pool, their friends they’re making from Denmark, Alaska, and Norway; eating every meal outside, “The geckos are funny. Especially when Mom closed the curtain and one fell down and she freaked out.” (Guess who said that.) Going to the beach, esp. Mile Post 88 Beach; the music and dancing here, and finding Plumeria blossoms to give to Mom.

TEARS AND MORE TEARS

9/27/09 Despite the losses and the grieving of those things, Randy and I were deeply moved and spurred on by the tears, the cards, and the gifts. I held one sweet neighbor girl in my arms as she cried and cried. My sister called on our last day and announced she’d be driving down for the afternoon from Seattle to help with the last bit of packing and cleaning. She asked, “Is this insane?” to which my husband retorted, “I LOVE your insanity!” When she bounded in the door a few hours later, all I could do was cry. One friend knew that I like to make chocolate zucchini muffins, took my recipe and two zuchs from my yard, and baked a batch, delivering them to our door 3 hours later. That was HUGE for our sanity! Our friends the Johnsons put our boys up for two nights while Randy and I were cleaning-feigns back at the home. This was marvelous for our sons’ emotional well-being as their sons are some of our boys’ best friends in all the world. Neighbors loaned us bedding for the last month, and students of mine and friends arrived en masse for a one-day blitz. They deep-cleaned windows and bathrooms, assisted with last-minute mailings and mending, entertained our kiddos, did oodles of yard work, and helped me talk through the ordering/narrowing of my home-school materials for phases 2 and 3 of our mission stint. One friend paid one of his employees to finish out our kitchen floor, and then returned to fix our screen door and some siding that needed patching. Two families loaned us cars, and more than one couple shoved checks or cash for hundreds of dollars into our hands in those last 48 hours to help with settling-in costs. In the end, all of our material possessions were stored in four friends’ basements or warehouses. (Thanks, guys!!) The last night in the Portland area, our family at the Johnsons’ house. They live minutes from the airport and had two extra large beds to put us all up comfortably. As I drifted to sleep around midnight, I had tears in my eyes due to the loss but the huge gains we’d already seen. It was humbling. I awoke the next morning, ready to climb on the plane, again with tears in my eyes. And 24 hours later as I awoke in a resort in Hawaii (that a friend helped us get) for a 3-day R & R stint prior to our training starting, I was again in tears. It had been a clean-stripping; a death of sorts, and was the beginning of a new thing.“FOR YOU DIED, AND YOUR LIFE IS NOW HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.” Colossians 3:3 “He is no fool, if he would choose to give what he can never keep to gain what he can never lose.”Former Portlander Jim Eliott (whose namesake our son shares and who was martyred doing pioneer missionary work in Ecuador in the 1950’s)

PACKING AND DYING

September 26, 2009
PACKING AND DYING
Packing up a family to move overseas is an interesting, emotional, and intense experience. It has been a death of sorts, and—as we put our house up for rent and moved out of our established Vancouver neighborhood, a bit like going to our own funeral.

First, the grieving of the loss of stuff. We are going to live as missionaries in a long-term capacity. We’re saying we’ll be gone two to five years, but God only truly knows the real length of time. So, by definition, that means simplifying. Reality is, our furniture is mainly used, so paying for storage for years would by far supersede the cost of those items. Thus, doing a sort of material-triage, I whittled our possessions down to four furniture items that had been in the family for years, a bunch of art and books we’d collected, and treasure troves of my husband’s photography as well as scrapbooks. The one item that really made me lose it was my deluxe mixer. It was a medium-fancy one from (then) Meier and Frank that we received as a wedding gift. It had the attachable base, and the alternative hooks for kneading bread, which I never used. What I did use it for was dozens and dozens of batches of chocolate zucchini muffins made with my sons each August and September. We had managed to sneak in a couple batches prior to our Labor Day Moving Sale in which most of it went. The night before, I was on the kitchen floor surrounded by gadgets and crying like a baby—over that mixer. It sold to a little girl who was translating for her mother the next day for $2. My sons, too, fell apart at unexpected times over the loss of a bunk bed or a favored camping tent. It’s hard for any age of person to see strangers come on to your property, poke and prod things that you could almost call friends, and then unfeelingly offer a much-lower price. Like grief that broadsides you when someone has died, one of us suddenly would be crying without being able to verbalize why .

Then there is the loss of friends. We tried to balance seeing people with packing and deep-cleaning our house. Wonderful friends justifiably wanted to eke out another night around the dinner table with us. I’ll never forget a few very close friends who said they couldn’t bring themselves to say goodbye. So, they didn’t. It was more like, “I’ll see you on Facebook next week.” One friend threw a going-away party for a particular group of our friends, and she said she wanted to decorate the house with black balloons. It was an imminent loss that she (like us) was willing to face, even with dragging feet.

Finally, there was what I call the funeral procession. It was rather surreal as people did unique things in expressing their sorrow of the loss of us from their lives (at least for this season). One neighbor who is quite private brought over a card from her and the kids. Another neighbor came with her husband and hugged me over and over, saying how much she would miss us. There were tears from older people and peers and children, home-made cards, meals brought, and even a couple caramel Macchiatos delivered for this couple packing, again, late into the night. People accompanied/drove us to the airport and said things about impressions we made when we first met them years ago, surprising us by their candor.