Humble obedience... Hurry up and wait!

God continues to amaze us and keep us dependent on Him. From packing and loading our stuff to pulling it to Ft Lauderdale...all accomplished through the help of friends! Brothers and sisters in Christ we are honored to run this race alongside. I can't even begin to say thank you to the friends who endured shopping with me last week...I HATE to shop, and the ones who packed my nightstand drawers and bathrooms....may you be forever mute! Those that loaded appliances and fed us and listed inventory to unpack by. Another friend is loaning us a truck sufficient for the load we have assimilated to be driven by a other family/friend to Ft. Lauderdale next week. All not us! All very humbling. The move is very real now with a folding table in the dining room! It is good!

Please pray:

- Christ will be made much of as we talk to different church small groups, God will show us how to be sent and remain connected as we go... NOT good bye

- safety of Rich Dennison as he drives the trailer 

- peace as Todd hands off job duties next week

- Steven, as he goes to Richmond this weekend to explore what the Journeyman program could look like as his next step in Jan 2015

- Michael and Amy as they seek The Lord for jobs and a home after the wedding

Prayers for Belize 

- there is a critical meeting in the next few days to determine the new contract with ItVet, the high school we currently house food and hold medical clinics. Pray for God to move in obvious ways to accomplish His will through this partnership, or show us where to go next.

- necessary paperwork is completed for the qualified retirement program

- Ashby Pruitt as he completes his first week in the discipleship program for young men at the camp

- Karen and David- always strength, endurance with joy according to His great power at work in them.

Huge thank you to those involved in planning all things rehearsal dinner in my absence! Di Wash, Lisa Dorough and Lisa Hall.

Mach Speed

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the Lord, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! (Psalm 9:1, 2, 10, 11 ESV)

Dependence....Thanksgiving...Dependence ...Thanksgiving

these are the lessons God is teaching!!

The week we spent in Belize...

The medical mission trip without doctors, very different! but SO God. When will we cease to be amazed that his ways are not our ways and his plans are not ever thwarted? Thankful for plans that were changed! We were able to stay in our house for 10 days and nights before it becomes our home, priceless time. We learned so much and will be moving all the wiser. 

Connections were made with the Ministry of Health officials that will bear much fruit for the Kingdom. We were invited to monthly community health meetings so we will know what they are teaching and better complement the local medical community. The flu was epidemic, people would have come and spread it...if we held the clinic. God is bigger, wiser, more powerful than any scheme of man. He alone is worthy of praise and we give it all to him! Even when He has to use ice storms to keep us on His plan!

Things are moving at Mach speed it seems...answered prayers of you all! 

We bought a vehicle in Belize! Never even dreamed possible, a neighbor of the Rhodes just happened to have THE truck we needed in his yard while we were there! 

Trailer- check! God provided a trailer the week before we left through a friend of a friend, Chip Pearce! MUCH nicer than we anticipated! It will double as a dental clinic when it graduates from moving:)

We have decided to put the house on the market to sell the first of May. We are beginning to sell furniture, to offset buying mattresses and appliances, and shipping costs. Packing party Valentine weekend:) Some of you have asked to help financially, it is humbling. The easiest, tax deductible way to do so is through the Kidzkonnect arm of 4ever Hope, you can visit there and find us under donation to missionaries.  

 4everhope.org or 

http://www.4everhope.org/#!donorformdon/c1vvt 

As of March first we will be without income for a while, another total dependence on God lesson for us. We've not had that feeling since we were each 15yo:)

AND we were so blessed by Michael and Amy's first shower yesterday. They are in need of prayers as well, as they seek The Lord in where they will serve and live in their new lives together. We are blessed, we are humbled, we are thankful to God. 

In Christ,

Todd, Shirley and Laura

Tears come more easily now, I can't write of it, but I can't leave it out. Those in Alabaster will see them. They are sweet, because of love not sadness, just a warning:) 

Shirley