An update on our training time in Virginia.



  

I am hoping this is the beginning of a long and meaningful relationship between you, the reader, and The Smeddle's blog! I love writing, but am not disciplined in doing it. I'm sorry. Discipline is something I am adding to my life in this new season we are entering.

  

A brief update on our family and the plans to move abroad...

We are nearing the end of our 7 week training. Our first two weeks here were a flurry of settling in, then hopping on an Amtrak to New York City where we stayed for a week in Brooklyn with some other trainees, then returning to Virginia and hitting the ground running. New York was fun, challenging, eye-opening, and a great training for how to engage a neighborhood as the newbie in town. We fell in love with Brooklyn, and are encouraged that we can fall in love with another city God might put us in.

"And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?" Jonah 4:11 A quick look at this verse shows God's heart for the city of Nineveh and his direct call on Jonah's life to go to this city. Jonah wasn't too keen to follow that call, but God changed his heart through a series of challenges. As a result, Jonah saw that God loved the city of Nineveh and wanted to use Jonah to help them see it.

  

Simon and I have had a similar experience. We came to training excited for our move to Asia, but that excitement was truly tested and purified over the last few weeks. Our kids became ill, and little Hannah especially struggled to get well. As her mother, I was quarantined with her for an entire week, and overall I missed a number of the training sessions I had so long looked forward to. Simultaneously, we found that the plans we had for moving to Asia needed some (serious) readjusting. (Read: tremendous confusion, stress, frustration, days of disillusionment, and desperation for God to show us the way forward). There was tremendous strain on our marriage as we tried to navigate all of these unforeseen trials. Our kids felt our stress. There was a lot of sleeplessness!

  

But we have persevered, as our family verse has always been Hebrews 10:39: "But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved."  We are days away from the completion of our training, our return to Nashville, and our final preparations for moving to Southeast Asia. Watch this space!



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