Missionary friends left Kenya last June for their itineration year. They returned this August (14 months) later. As we stood talking when they arrived from the airport they said, “We left when you had four kids at home. We came back a year later and you are down to two.” It has been quite a change seeing our kids go.
On the night Joelle flew from Nairobi to Springfield, Missouri, I wrote this note:
I remember in the movie, “Beyond the Next Mountain” the young hero being sent off by his father to school. I can only imagine the prayers and pain that father experienced as he saw his little one walk away. He travels alone through the jungle. He jumps rivers. He sleeps outdoors. He heard the night screams of animals unseen; unknown.
Tonight, our young hero is being sent off by her father to school beyond the next ocean. As you walk away from us tonight and the glass doors and glass windows separate us from you, my prayers will follow you and my heart will suffer loss. You will sleep alone on the plane tonight. You will wake in the morning on a strange continent. You will fly across a vast ocean before you arrive at your school.
But the pain is worth it all because you go to fulfill God’s plan for your life. It is not my plan, your mother’s plan or even you own plan you cross the ocean to begin. It is God’s plan. Where that plan takes you and when I cannot tell. When you return to this jungle home and how I cannot fully see, but in His time and in His way you will go forth to do all God has called and planned for you to do.
Joelle has been a parent’s joy. We are so proud of her. She was voted best role model by her class. She recently received the National AP Scholar Award. She is now attending Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri studying Nursing.
6J’s
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