Chris and I love this song by Kendall Payne called Pray and it has been constantly going through our heads. It has changed they way we pray and see situations, and reminds me of the type of person I want to be.

I will pray for you now, for you have been my faithful friends
While the road we walk is difficult indeed
I couldn't not ask for more than what you've already been
Only that you would say these prayers for me

May your heart break enough that compassion enters in
May your strength all be spent upon the weak
All the castles and crowns you build and place upon your head
May they all fall, come crashing down around your feet
May you find every step to be harder than the last
So your character grows greater every stride
May your company be of humble insignificance
May your weakness be your only source of pride

What you do unto others may it all be done to you
May you meet the One who made us
And see Him smile when life is through

May your blessings be many but not what you hoped they'd be
And when you look upon the broken
May mercy show you what you could not see
May you never be sure of any plans you desire
But you'd learn to trust the plan He has for you
May your passions be tried and tested in the holy fire
May you fight with all your life for what is true

I have prayed for you now all my dear and faithful friends
But what I wish is more than I could ever speak
As the way wanders on I'll long to see you once again
Until then, would you pray these prayers for me?
Oh, that you would pray for me

May 3

I've been hesitant to post.
How do you express 532 emotions in one blog post?
So here are the facts:
our visas were approved
bought tickets (with the help of carving sales, donation, chris working, and tax refund)
flight out of Boston May 3

MAY THIRD

crazy.   There's so much to do it almost paralyzes me.  All my years of making fun of list-makers is biting me, i'm forced to make lists of things we need, thing to do.  We have to get rid of a lot of junk, figure out what's essential to take, what we can get in Tonga...there's a limited amount of information so i'm running off a peace corp list.  My sister-in-law suggested i put up a list of things we need, it hadn't even crossed my mind.    So i'll be putting it up shortly.

Knowing we'll be leaving in May has made every day living surreal.  Ever since we found out i've been debating what to post.  I wanted to be honest with my thoughts and portrayal of the situation.  I'm excited, but i have fears.  Especially concerning my kids.  What kind of faith (in Jesus) do i have?  If it's been all talk, well, i'll soon find out.  I can be fearless if  i fully believe God is real and good.  I won't cling to save my life so much but fearlessly give it to others even in dangerous situations.   But, honestly, what holds me back at times are these two questions:  Is God real?  and is He as good as He says He is?  Because if it's a yes, then when He says:

²⁷ “Consider how the wildflowers grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! ²⁸ If that’s how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will He do for you—you of little faith? ²⁹ Don’t keep striving for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don’t be anxious. ³⁰ For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.

   ³¹ “But seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided for you. ³² Don’t be afraid,little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom. ³³ Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

then...i literally should not worry about holding on to my possessions or if we'll have money for food in Tonga.  Chris and I are constantly struggling to not be manipulative.  I constantly have to check myself and why i'm saying something.  It would be easy to manipulate or say things people like to hear so they will help fund our trip.  I want to look back and see how God brought us to where we are, how He provided for us.   Not how i guilted them or used the Bible to get what i want.

Last thought, here's what we decided to do about the Fiji guy.  On our way to Tonga we don't have a lot of extra time, so we decided to stay in Fiji for 3 days and hope to stay at his hotel and talk with him.  We have to come back to Fiji in a year when our visa's run out so that we can renew them.  If we meet up with Fiji guy on our way out we'll plan to go to his village in a year.

Fiji guy

Hey everybody!  thanks so much for all your support this past week through donations and sales of carvings!  Chris's carvings have been selling like hotcakes!  It has been very encouraging to us!  We'll give you all the amount we've raised when we have a good idea.  But, it has been great.  We are such silly/crazy people and it is totally humbling for us to see the support and love from people.

The guy in the picture above lives in Fiji, if we zoom in on his name tag we'll know his name.  While in Fiji, before flying to Tonga, Chris met him at the hotel he was staying at.  Chris explained to him why he was moving with his family to Tonga.  He had never heard of a white person moving to Tonga or Fiji to help people and not make money off the people or land.  He asked Chris to come to his village in the mountains on our way out to Tonga to explain to his village why we would do that.  He told Chris to take a picture of him so we could find him.

beautifully colored Hindu temple in Fiji

So we're debating what we should do right now.  Should we stay a month in Fiji before flying to Tonga?  I checked ticket prices and our cost of flight would increase by about $2,000.  And what if we go and can't find him?

Obviously there's a lot to think about.  But how can we say no? Chris asked the kids and they said they wouldn't mind staying in Fiji for month.  We are definitely going to pray about it.  I have an intense imagination and of course have some fears about the whole situation.  But i wanted to let everyone know what was going on.  We're going to take it one step at a time.

What would you do?

Visa applications have arrived!

Tonga time is not like our time here in the U.S.  The last time i posted we were just sending out our visa application. In January.  And now, in the last few days of February they have arrived!  I actually sent out  copies of the forms in the beginning of February in case our original forms got lost.  They didn't.  Both packages arrived at the same time (not sure the logic there).
           
According to Kamu they will bring the papers to the consulate within the week and give us a call and we'll find out when we need to leave here.  Yikes.  I'm getting a wee bit scared.

So what have we been up to this past month?  Carvings! Lot's of them.  The plan is to sell them to fund our move!  Plane tickets one-way will cost around $4,000 for all of us.  And there's repatriation and medical evacuation insurance, living expenses, and utility costs.  We'll be putting them all up on facebook for whoever is interested!

In the Mail

Yeehaw!  I put the visa application in the mail today!  From here it will take 6-10 business days to reach Tonga.  Once it gets there we will wire $805 to Kamu.  Then Kamu will  fill out a paper and bring it all to the immigration office.   From there we WAIT.
And we're used to that.
It took 3-4 years to even get to this point.  But we've learned a lot in the mean time.  About ourselves, about each other. About Yahweh.  Feels like we've come up with a lot of questions and not many answers.
But a few truths are becoming more solid.  (they're very basic, but difficult to master)
faith

•  faith that God is good, and His goodness might look a little different than what i consider good.
•  do I even have it?  Because most of my life i've just talked.  That's part of the reason we're going to               Tonga.  We're so weak.  Faith needs to be tested in the fire.  I don't want to live my whole life thinking i have faith and find out i never did .  I'm also scared to find out.
• faith that we'll even have $805 to send for the visa application fee!

love

• If we don't have it we are nothing.  And i mean Jesus's love.  Some days i can barely muster up the motivation to show love to my family.  How do i plan on loving and serving people i don't even know?  It has to be supernatural.  I'm not naturally sweet.
• Because Jesus commanded it.  Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Because Jesus showed the greatest love.  Any amount of love we show is just a drop compared to the ocean of Yahweh's love.

giving

• When we give we're so much like Jesus.  Giving is so essential.  And it definitely reveals a lot in our hearts.  I feel the battle a lot.  Putting the needs of others before myself does not come -once again-naturally.  Chris sometimes drives me crazy with how much he gives! 
• I want to be a giving person, i like stuff to.  And the way I see it is my love of stuff sure can get in the way of giving.  Jesus gave up His rights, His stuff, His glory.  His followers in the book of Acts didn't see their property as their own.  They sold it to give to others who needed it.  It's hard get that through my head.  

endurance

• "You want to go to Tonga because God told you?  That's so irresponsible. You have kids."  "You're not going through a mission board and going from church to church to raise support? Why would you  do that?"  "Sounds like you're having childhood fantasies."  Everybody gets criticized, i know that.  But it's still painful.  To keep saying every year, "hopefully we'll be going this spring!" It stinks to look like a fool.  To feel like everyone thinks you're a joke.  That no one takes you seriously.  We've heard it straight from people and behind our backs.  We've questioned ourselves, "are we doing the right thing?  Did God really tell us to do this?  Are we following through just so we can throw it in all the doubter's faces?"  But, this IS what God wants from us, serving others is right, and even if this process takes years longer we have to keep pursuing it.  And if at anytime God says "no", we'll stop and be frustrated, but happy we learned so much.

grace

• I'm so thankful for God's grace covering my non-missionary qualities.  I'm not a good person. Don't have a bubbly personality. Selfish to the core.  Filled with anger, resentment, bitterness, and criticism.   Oh, and i yell at my kids to.  I fear even writing this people will see my hypocrisy.  It's their, trust me. I'm extremely faulty and i'm so sorry i'm not more like Jesus.   But God is full of so much grace and he's changing me slowly. Slowly finding out grace is enough.

Visas' can be fun

nice picture of Chris in Tonga

Still working on our visas.  I feel like that has been our status for months now.  Oh wait, it has!  Tonga's visas seem more complicated than most.  (i'm guessing, i don't really know).  Here's the latest issue.
We need insurance called repatriation.  It insures Tonga that we have a way out of the country.  The insurance company (seven corners-i'm actually quite happy with their customer service, very nice folk over their) can't give us the insurance until we know our departure date, well, we won't know our departure date until we know our visas are approved.
           So it's a cruel cycle.  I all ready sent in our payment, but we now have to wait for it to be returned and then reapply for a different type of insurance.  With this insurance we can cancel before the date of departure and get a full refund,  but at least we'll have proof when we send in the visa.  Then later when we get visa approved i can take that money and once again apply for the other insurance when i know the departure date.
           Being the panicky person i be at times i was a bit concerned since the guaranteed cancellation refund insurance is about $400 more.  And if we don't do this soon all the dated proofs for the visa need to be redone (like the chest x-rays, blood work, and police records).  Thankfully a wonderful and well-bearded man is lending us the money until Chris goes back to work.  Once our visas are sent to Kamu and Saane we will then need to send $800 for the visa fee.
            No, we don't have that either.  I hesitate to ever bring up finances.  We would never want to burden or guilt anyone.  But, we wouldn't want to deny anyone the joy in giving and sharing in this privilege we have.  And boy, does it cost money. We will be setting up an account in the States that funds can be put into for the specific purpose of supporting us and our basic needs in Tonga.

I read this the other day and really like it...maybe you will to...
"Not to us, Yahweh, not to us,
but to Your name give glory
because of your faithful love, because of
Your truth."
                       Psalm 115:1

"Turn my heart to Your decrees
and not to material gain.
Turn my eyes
from looking at what is worthless;
give me life in Your ways."
                       Psalm 119:36-37

Getting Ready

These are mango trees and soon we'll be eating mangos here!  We've almost completed our visas and just need to finish up a few other requirements.  It's been alot of work but we're almost done!  Can't wait to send them out and see what happens.