Trust the Plan

Trusting that God has our best interests at heart. 

Well everyone... we're still in Michigan.  

One of the toughest times of our lives has been over the last 6 months.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re INCREDIBLY blessed.  Many other families have much tougher times than we have experienced.  It has not been tough based on the fact that we personally are struggling, but the fact that we have so many needs to attend to in the Dominican Republic that have fallen on Kailey, our INCREDIBLE Medical Coordinator.  She not only has been coordinating all things medical, but also pulling triple duty as “director” of programs as well as "volunteer coordinator" in our absence.  We truly are 1000000% blessed that God has put it on her heart to help this people group through BBOH & FUMSIL.  

When God makes you lay down in green pastures to hear His still small voice, you often feel lazy, unproductive and worthless.  We’re not though.  It takes an INCREDIBLE amount of self discipline to cast our own ideas of what we expect or want for our lives to instead hear what God actually wants.  Personally, as per my last blog post, you all know that I have struggled with this myself.  As a husband, man, father and son, we place, sometimes albeit unfair expectations on ourselves.  The drive, need and desire to hunt and gather for our families.  It is sort of built into our DNA the same way Jessica packed the nursery with shredded newspaper and clumps of cotton and old hair....
Okay.... so maybe that’s a mama raccoon... but Jess nested in her own way and I think it’s normal for expecting mothers to "nest".   Same is true for husbands/fathers taking care of their family.   To deny this internal drive is very difficult and takes discipline.  Listening to God’s still small voice takes an immense amount of energy.  Most of the time I get it wrong.  This time?  I believe I got it right.  We weren’t supposed to go back to the DR in February.  I discussed this in my last post.  However, new information has come out since then that has shaped my opinion further. 

 We found out that on April 20th, the Direction Of General Immigration in the Dominican Republic has changed some laws that affect us as long term missionaries.  It’s still to be determined as to how it will affect us, but long story short, we may need a more formal visa or residency in order to stay in the DR for long periods of time.  I won’t go into boring details about that.   This does not affect others as much as ourselves in the country due to our large family and circumstances.  We are in the process of investigating how as an NGO we can obtain missionary visas from the consulate and to be able to obtain them for our long term volunteers as well.  God always provides when your working His mission.  I believe this is part of why we are still here.  The story on this is still unfolding and we'll be sure to update when we know more.  

A quick update on my health.  Things are much better.  Right foot is completely healed while the left has a slight hole still which is also getting better.  We hope to be back down in the DR by June.  It really is a lesson in trusting the plan.  We trust that God wants what’s best for us, we accept our circumstances on blind faith.  As always keep us in your prayers!!  We always need them!! 

--Adam