Our new home......

Well, dispite a crazy Monday we have celebrated our first full day in our new home. It all started bright and early on Monday morning when we finished loading our bags in the van and headed to each dorm to say good-bye.  You see some of those kiddos, may not be there when we return and I wanted to make sure to say good-bye and tell them that I loved them....which our whole family loves them all very much. (YEAH!...that was a tear jerker.....some of the boys had been awake since 5:30 or so to see us off.)  Of coarse there were others that slept but it filled my heart with happiness knowing that they loved us as much as we love them. We then move on over to the girls dorm for the same thing to say our good-byes and give a tons of hugs. When then packed into a van and headed to the airport. Pastor Mike the director from the

children's home, his wife Ms. Chris, Jewelissa, Mark's mom and dad went with us to see us off. Boy that was a tough time trying to hold back the tears. You know you never really know just how much people mean to you until you have to hug them and say good-bye. Sometimes, you get so wrapped up in your everyday routines that you forget to tell those special people in your life just how much they mean to you and how much of an encouragement they are to you.  (Ok so, I said that to say this.....don't wait until you have to say good-bye to realize the special people in your life.)  Now onto getting in the airport with 13 pieces of luggage plus a stroller, laptop, diaperbag, purse, and three bookbags. Yes we were a sight to see...lol. So, we breezed through security and made it to our terminal.     

We were suppose to fly out of Tampa at 10 and well due to bad weather in Miami we were delayed until 12 or so and wouldn't ya know our flight from Miami was to leave at 12:10. Can you say....not gonna happen. So, we get to Miami to find that our flight and the next flight had been canceled but we should make the 8:25......yep....that was canceled too along with about 30 other flights. But, the Lord is good and we got to stay in a hotel as a family one last night before making our move. This was a peaceful time for it cleared our heads and really gave us the strong desire to press on to language school.  OK, so now we get to the airport on Tuesday morning to take the 12:10 flight......flight delayed...seems to be the story of our life. lol.  

Our plane was ready to be boarded but the pit crew was on another flight so we had to wait for them....new depature time....1:10.  We get a boarding call to start loading the plane...yeah!!!!! So, we board and the plane is hot...it has been turned off for about 2 hours and we discover that the crew has still not yet landed.....Josiah despite the situation was doing very well. The stewardess was so sweet. She gave him a cheese and cracker tray and he tore it up.....I know now that he loves raisins.  By this time the people on the plane are complaining because there is no air and of coarse there was an older couple that thought they could just give there seats up and sit whereever they wanted on the plane......to funny. So, the pilots arrive to discover on their walk about that there is a leak under one of the engines and a check engine or oil light on up front.....fun......But grateful that they were looking and had ot fixed before take off. (So, are you enjoying this trip so far?) Well, the next part is too cute. 

Some of you may know that Josiah has become quit fond of planes these days along with balls and buses. So his excitement to sit on the plane was just to cute...as he shouted looking out the window at the planes getting ready to take off ahead of us. However, that all changed in the matter of a few seconds, when the g-forces pushed his little body back in the seat....and he looked at me and said...."Momma, I walk, I wanna walk, I not want to fall."  He looked at me with this face of sheer panic but did not want to cry. I had a sweatshirt on my lap and he crawled under it and said..."I hide momma! I hide! It was so sad to see how scared he was and squeezing my leg. It was about 10 minutes later and he was sound asleep....(you can say awe! because I did each time he realized we were still in the air.)  Now the time has come...we have landed and we have to go through customs and security along with trying to gather all of those bags plus manage our carry on's. We know that you all must have been praying for because we breezed right through customs. Now, time to gather those suitcases. We watch and wait and only ONE bag comes out. I ask the guy unloading and he said the words that everyone wants to hear.."this is all the luggage on the plane" GREAT we are thinking, so I ask what do we need, he said file a claim. I make my way to fill out a claim and guess what I SPY?  All the green ribbons, that I had tied on our luggage...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,  and 9 they were all there. PTL. We begin to load them up on a big cart to head over to security. Again, thankful for the prayers they scanned a few and sent us on our way. They were super nice and we had no issues at all. We are now on our way to our new home. (The picture you see is the view from our bedroom window)

It was so nice to meet our new friends Carla and Eric who set us up with an awesome house less than a minute from the school we will be attending. We also have a sweet missionary girl that lives with us named Marianna. She is a super nice girl and will help us a ton with our Spanish. Josiah already calls her MeMe..because she reminds him of one of the girls from the home. We also had some intresting trips to the grocery store.....that will be tomorrows blog......Thanks to all who have been praying for us. Please continue to keep us in your prayers and that we will raise the remaining funds we need for language school.  (BY The way if there are typos in this I apologize.....the Spell check is in Spanish and I am not sure how to convert it back to English due to the wireless being in spanish.)

Saying Good-Bye....

I can not believe that in less than 48 hours we will be on our way to a new country, a new home and a new church. Saying good-bye is a hard thing for me to do. While we all mean well....sometimes your old friends find new ones and the distance between you grows and you seem to be too busy for each other. I know that the past nine months have flown by and yet it seems that every waking moment we had something to do or somewhere to go.

 I miss all of my friends from North Carolina dearly along with all of our family. I am also going to miss all of the friends that we have made here and the children who have been a big part of our lives here. It is amazing to think that some of them are here simply because their parents did not want them anymore. I love each one of them and pray that God will guide and direct them so that they can do great things for HIM.

Josiah is going to miss his best buddy Caleb. They are just a few months apart and have spent the last nine months together. We will have to work hard at incorporating things from the USA into his daily life. For without it he will not know or see much about the country where he was born.

We have been packing our bags all week and we have a total of 13 bags going to Costa Rica. It was a tough job trying to pack for a year.....I am going crazy from looking at luggage and weighing each piece. LOL! Who knew packing could be so difficult. I can not imagine Michelle Duggar( 19 kids and counting) traveling much. I mean for goodness sake she would need her on plane for her family and luggage alone. LOL. We each have 2 bags plus three carry ons....hers would be close to 40 bags.

Well, we have added a SKYPE number for all of you who would like to be able to call us. It is a local number for North Carolina but any out of state people if you have Skype it is free from "S" to "S".  Our number is 919-809-7647. We can have video stream so that we can see each other. However, if you do not have a web cam you can still see us we just can' see you. We had an exciting treat....

Mark's mom and dad drove all the way down from N.C. to see us off. It has been nice to spend the week with them. They along with Pastor Mike and Ms. Chris will see us off at the airport on Monday morning.

Here is my last thought before we get settled in to our new home next week unless I can get some more time to type. This journey has been such a blessing to me and our family. The Lord has really helped me to prepare my heart for the love that I get to share with the children who receive no love. I have heard a bunch of people say that they could not love anyone more than their spouse or more than their own children. Well, I am hear to say that you have just never opened your heart. I have more love pouring out of my heart for the kids here and in Honduras than I could even tell you about.

 I also have a new respect and love for all of the people who answer God's call to become missionaries. It can be a tough road, a discouraging road and even sometimes a lonely road. I challenge you to try and contact the missionaries that your church supports and let them know that you are lifting them up in thoughts and prayers. God himself loved HIS son JESUS enough to share him with the whole world so that through him we might be saved. He gave us a whole book of encouraging words to read daily and we should be willing to do the same for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are really going to miss everyone not only away in North Carolina but our new FAMILY here at HOPE in Tampa.  We love you all.

From Birthdays to Auctions.........

Wow! Where has the time gone? We have been so busy here trying to get everything ready for our move. Mark and I just celebrated 15 years of marriage and Josiah's 2nd birthday on April 7th. It is so hard for me to think that after the Lord took three of my babies to be with HIM in glory that he would give us Josiah after we surrendered our lives to His will. Josiah has been such a blessing to us along with Taylor and Hunter and we pray that God will use all three of them in a mighty way. We also had the pleasure of traveling to Ashford Connecticut to meet The Leavitt's who help run the Jeff Braun foundation. They were able to put together an auction and benefit dinner on Saturday evening to help raise money for the building of Hope of Honduras. I must say that it was my first ever auction and while it was for charity it was a ton of fun. We had a great time visiting Connecticut and seeing just how beautiful the state is. God is amazing! He placed the trees and rocks and hills in such a way that all you can think is wow! Which brings me to a thought; how many of us just step back and look at what a wonderful artist GOD is. We could never paint or draw such beauty on our own. It really was beautiful to see. We were also able to meet with Bill Braun, Jeff's father and tell him of the progress that we are making in Honduras. We are thankful that he and his wife adopted Jeff when he was a baby from Honduras. It is because of a dream that their son had that we have the funding and path to Hope of Honduras children's home. We can hardly believe that in less than 12 days we will be packing up again and moving to Costa Rica. We are so thankful for you all who support us not only in funds but in prayer. We love you all.

Recent Trip to Honduras

On March 22nd Mark and I were able to fly to Honduras along with Pastor Mike Higgins and his wife Chris. while there we were able to reconnect with the three families that make up Team Honduras and our family makes the fourth. We had a great time fellowshipping and taking a tour of the 10 acre property. The church/multi-purpose building is almost complete. The floors were being finished while we were there. The Lord has been faithful and steady at supplying the much needed funds to keep the project moving forward. The doors and windows have been ordered and should arrive soon for installation. Mark, Pastor Mikeand the other men were able to go out and stake off the lots for each cottage. While there we meet with a national official who is helping in the building project. He gave us the permissions that we needed to start construction on the first cottage. We were surprised when they said that the first cottage could be ready in fours months from the start of construction. It was such a blessing to be there and see all of the people of Iglesia Bautista El Faro and their excitment for the future. Mark and I had a wonderful time seeing some of the children that we had seen three years before on our missions trip and to see how much they had grown. The Ellis' also took us to some homes where children live with their grandparents that are perfect candidates for Hope. It is so awesome to see that the journey is taking route and we are not far from our final destination.