Wednesday, October 4, 2017

New Zealand: Visas, Vaccines, and Vanuatu - Staff Adventures!

Thus ends a long period of blog silence!  And although our blog has been uncharacteristically quiet, our lives have been anything but!

Time has flown since we received our NZ visas and stepped on that plane that carried us away from the US of A, through midwife appointments and ultrasounds, mentoring students and a memorial service (Gabe's Grandpa passed away in August), absorbing as many useful skills and spiritual insights as possible from our incredible guest teachers, and preparing for another outreach with our students and staff - with sights set on Vanuatu, Israel, Hong Kong, and India.

Dani has logged the students' vaccine records, sorted, transported, and ensured that each one has received all the immunizations they need to travel to their international locations.  Gabe has been busy with various painting, planting, and re-modeling projects:


As well as coordination of a simulated medical clinic where students got to practice the medical skills they'll use at their destinations.

Lecture phase has been wonderful, as we serve side-by-side, learning how to help students, heal, grow, and become healthy followers of Christ, ready for months of pouring themselves out, serving and healing people of the nations.

As I sit here with amongst piles of clothes and bags, with varied outreach supplies strewn across the floor, I am struck by the strange and transient nature of our life.  Are we ready to go and share the love and truths that have changed our hearts?  Have we given our students all they need to be successful?  Are we ready to be parents?  How in the world does time go so fast?

In light of questions (be they light and ordinary, or the sort that feel overwhelming) I am convinced that God is constant and utterly unchanging, faithful in his love toward us, and I know every good gift comes from him.  I believe He will help us (as we are going to Vanuatu aiming to make Him happy), guide us to the good works He prepared for us in advance, do miracles to prove His love and wonder, and that He will meet with His children.

It's going to be a good outreach.  

Wherever you are, invite Him to pull you into the present, and refresh you by doing something more, something better than what you were expecting from today.

Until next week,
-Gabe (and Dani!)

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