One thing Nick and I have learned in life is that we should never say never; each time we do, that’s exactly where life takes us. Nick specifically remembers saying to God, “I’ll go on short term missions, but I will never do it full time.” When we were dating, I laughed at Nick when he suggested his “future wife” be a stay at home Mom and also clarified that I would never home school. Yet here we are full time missionaries who homeschool our kids, and we couldn’t be happier. We know that our lives are in Gods hand and not ours.
Another thing Nick and I always said we would never do is start our own organization. Over the last few months, people have suggested we go this route a few times. We would graciously accept the advice and move on, not giving it much thought. Again, it appears God had other plans for our lives.
We have spent the last 8 months trying to figure out where the best fit would be for us and our skills. We kept feeling like we were coming to a dead end mainly because we don’t feel called to work for any other missions here in Cap Haitien. There are a few organization in Port au Prince that we would be interested in, but have no desire to live down there. For months we didn’t even allow ourselves to talk about the possibility of starting our own place. What first started out as a joke “Maybe we should do our own thing,” turned into a serious discussion.
We spent a few months coming up with ideas, but weren’t sure if this was the direction we really wanted to go. Then we were invited to Orlando to spend time with two families who support us and truly understand missions. We discussed our ideas with them, and they encouraged us to move forward with it and become independent missionaries. I would be lying if I said we are completely comfortable with this. In fact we are pretty nervous. However, we feel that not only can we accomplish this, but we can do it well. As we dive deeper and deeper into this, Nick and I are becoming more and more excited. It’s already been amazing to see how God is putting everything together for us.
On July 2nd our family packed up a small portion of our belongings and temporarily moved back to Helping Haitian Angels. In June, Nick and I purchased an acre of land in the Cap Haitian Valley. We immediately begin phase 1 of our 4 step plan, which was to build a small Guest Residence on the property we just purchased. Nicks goal was to complete it in 3-4 weeks, a goal that it appears he is going to meet. Once the Guest Residence is complete, our family will move in there for a few months until our house is built. At that point, we will begin to work on Phase 2, which I can’t wait to tell you more about later!
