Four Years and What's Next

It is hard to believe that this month marks four years here in Malawi. 

Four.full.years. 

How is this even possible?! 

Back in 2013, we arrived in Malawi with four children, ages nine and under. 

Two of whom could not speak English! 

We had a 10’ x 4’ space of our personal belongings and nervous excitement in our hearts.

We really had no clue the ride God would have us on and the lessons He would teach us.

So much has happened in the past four years. We have grown as a family and as individuals. We have developed relationships, started programs, learned a billion hard lessons, made and learned from mistakes, laughed and cried until it hurt. We can hardly recognize the people who stepped off that plane four years ago.

As October has been quickly approaching, marking the end of our contract, we have been deep in prayer for many months seeking God’s will on what is next for our family. 

Through the adoption of our daughters, working with the children and families at Esther’s House, and being able to start a program working with single moms, God has really given us a heart and a passion for orphan prevention. 

So much so, that we feel He is calling us to start a new ministry whose purpose is to reunite families and also preserve the family unit.

After discussing with Pure Mission, our Board of Directors, about where God was leading us, we have agreed to continue to partner together. We will begin the new ministry, called “Ufulu Groups”, under the umbrella of Pure Mission and continue to be governed by their Board. We are also very honored that David has been given a board seat at Pure Mission. 

In January 2018, we will transition from Ntcheu to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city, about 2.5 hours away. We are really excited to begin this new ministry and to continue to partner with Pure Mission. 

Here are some answers to questions that you may have:

1) What is the vision of your new ministry? 

To empower vulnerable and under-resourced single parents through skills training and dignified work, resulting in family reunification and family preservation. 

We would be happy to answer any of your questions, and you can also check out the website for more information- www.ufulugroups.org (website is a work in progress)

2) What does this mean for Esther’s House?

We are very thankful to still be a part of Esther’s House! We will be coming to Esther’s House once a month to continue to support and help the Hanson family. We adore the Hansons and feel so good about leaving the ministry in their capable hands. We are thrilled to be able to continue to spend time with the kids and staff here. David has accepted a position on the Board of Directors, and we are thankful for the gift of continuing to be a part of the ministry at Esther’s House.

3) How will your children be affected by the move?

When we moved here, our oldest was a 9-year-old 3rd grader. He is now 13 and just started 7th grade. It is becoming more and more difficult to meet our children’s educational needs. We have tried to be creative here by hiring a private tutor. Last year, we even put him in the best school in our district. Unfortunately, it was not a viable option for our family. Moving to Lilongwe will hopefully allow all our kids to attend school with American curriculum, have friends, and participate in activities. The potential for these new opportunities for our children makes us feel relieved and hopeful, as it also coincides with the new ministry God has laid on our hearts. 

4) What does this mean for current financial partnerships? 

The way to partner with our family will not change. You will still be able to support our family and ministry through Pure Mission. More details will come out about this later. Honestly, with our move to the city, we will need your partnerships more than ever! We pray that you all will continue to see the value of what God is doing with our family in Malawi and continue to partner with us. Unfortunately, city life is considerably more expensive than living in the village. With rent and school, our budget will increase significantly, but we feel a peace that God will continue to provide, just as He has done for the past four years. 

AR to AF {Part 13 The Move}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.
Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:

Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}

Part 9 {here}

Part 10 {here}

Part 11 {here}

Part 12 {here}

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This month marks four year of living in Malawi...and I am finally finishing up how we wound up here. This is the last installment of AR to AF!

When we arrived back in the States from Congo, we spent a six short weeks rushing around to get all the girls' paperwork completed so that we would be able to move to Malawi. We finalized the re-adoption of the girls in our home state, acquired green cards, and US passports. God moved mountains and worked miracles to finalize everything so quickly. 

Besides scrambling for paperwork, we tried to spend time with our family and also form  bonds with our girls. You can check out some memories made in our adoption video. We had so much fun re-watching this today!

In October 2013, our new formed family of six boarded a plane to move to Malawi. That day was really surreal. We were ready to move and begin our new lives in Malawi. We were still fully immersed in the hard work of blending our family together. We were nervous, excited, anticipant, yet also really sad to be leaving our family, friends and church. It was a weird mix of emotions.

{Our family at the airport with our friends/BOD members/Co-founders of Esther's House}

After 3 days of traveling, we arrived in Malawi and were warmly greeted by the two families that were on our team (Carneys and Jacksons). We spent the night in the capital city so we could go grocery shopping in the morning. I remember having an emotional breakdown in the grocery store. What does 5,600 MWK for peanut butter mean? Are we going to go broke at the grocery store? What do we need to buy? If I don't buy it now, will we starve? I am so tired!

Oh my gosh, what have we done?!

We drove to Ntcheu and arrived to Esther's House after dark that night. We had nine little smiling faced children waiting for us on our front porch. We entered our home and found our boxes with all of our earthly belongings in the living room and our beds put together (thank you Carneys!). 

We had no electricity. 

We were home.

{First week in Malawi going to buy mangos with the Jacksons. Note how tiny my kids are!}

I don't have many pictures for the next few months after this. 

We were learning how to live in Malawi. 

How to do our jobs. 

Where to buy stuff.

We were learning the culture and how things worked. 

We were learning how to homeschool.

How to cook, find water, manage life without much electricity.

We were learning how to be a family of six.

How to be a working mom with no baby sitter.

How not to get sick when we ate.

How to parent kids from hard places.

 Thinking back on those days, I realize how naive we were. 

How many BIG changes we had just put our family through. 

We had no idea the lessons we would learn, the hurts we would experience, the joy and healing that would come. 

We could not fathom how God would show us how we desperately NEEDED Him, 

minute by minute. 

 By the grace of God, we learned most those things (always learning) and by the grace of God we are still here! 

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Thanks so much for following along with our family's journey.  I hope you will keep hanging around as new adventures are on the horizon that we will be sharing with you all soon!

Arkansas to Africa {Part 12 Hopping a Plane}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.
Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:

Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}

Part 9 {here}

Part 10 {here}

Part 11 {here}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 I left off last with our plans to go ahead and move to Malawi and wait on our girls' US Visas. We had booked our tickets to move to Malawi with the rest of our team in July 2013. 

A few weeks before our departure date, we received incredible news from the US Embassy!  Our investigation was complete! It was time to go pick up our girls! So, in a whirlwind, we canceled our Malawi tickets and booked tickets to go pick up our girls in DRCongo.  In July, we traveled to the airport and sent off the two families that were on our team. We said, "see you later" and went back home to our empty house. It was a strange feeling not going with the rest of our team, but exciting also that we were just days away from meeting our girls!

On August 4, 2013, we boarded a plan to DRCongo! It was really the most surreal feeling. Finally completing our family after  3.5 years of waiting. This was our first time to land on the continent of Africa, and it was all just full of so many emotions as we had been dreaming about this day for so long!

On August 6, after a night of no sleep because of excitement jitters, a van pulled up in front of our hotel. Out popped two little girls.... our girls. A few quick words about schedules and likes/dislikes, and then we were alone. We were now mom and dad to 2 little ones that we had been staring at for months in photos.

We spent 3 weeks in DRCongo completing paperwork and waiting...lots and lots of waiting. We weren't allowed to leave our hotel very much, so the days were long. We missed our boys terribly and were ready to get back to the States so we could complete all the next steps to start our lives in Malawi. Understandably, there was lots of trauma and hard adjustments as we got to know each other and learn to trust. Looking back, I wish I could have whispered in my ear, "it's all going to be ok, it's just going to take time." 

Three weeks later, we received our much anticipated Exit Letters and we rushed to the airport at dark to catch our flight. Five weeks later, the country quit issuing Exit Letters and held onto this suspension for over two years. We made it through the long, rough flights and landed back in Arkansas in late August 2013. All four of us were ready to be done with those flights and we were anxious to be back with the boys and start life as a family of six! I wrote more about our adoption here. 

Now that we were back on American soil, we had several things to do to get ready for our move. We had to re-adopt the girls in our State, apply for SS #"s, wait on green cards, get new birth certificates and US passports. We lived in the States (in our empty house) for six weeks while we applied and waited for these documents. Looking back, I am still amazed that God accomplished all those things in six short weeks!

In those six weeks we tried to cocoon our family in so we could bond and become a new family. We also tried to soak in as much time as we could with our families since we were going to be moving away soon. It was an interesting transition time.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I think the next installment of AR to AF will be the last! When I started off writing this series, I never dreamed it would take me 13 installments and almost 3 years! 

Arkansas to Africa {Part 11 Delays}

Welp, I did not mean to neglect my little blog, but somehow many months have passed by and here she lays, all dusty. I am excited to get back into updating this little space more often and to finally sitting down and finishing the AR to AF series. I am finding that my memory is getting fuzzy on the details and I want to wrap this up before I completely forget it!

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.
Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:

Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}

Part 9 {here}

Part 10 {here}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

After leaving off 18 months ago {i will complete this, i will complete this}, we thought we would get approval to travel to bring our daughters home in February 2013 and move to Malawi in May 2013. We received news that changed our timeline and left us unsure of how it all was going to go down.

The United States Embassy in our girl's birth country issued a change in policy. Instead of a two week investigation before approval of visas, they were going to begin a mandatory 6 month investigation. On one hand, we were all for more checks and balances to make sure our adoption was ethical, but on the other hand, the delay felt like a punch in the gut as our girls were waiting in a transition house for us. The extra six month wait felt like an eternity. We also weren't sure that six months wouldn't actually turn into a year or more. Our girls were from a village that was a six hour flight from where the US Embassy was located. The USE had no idea of when they would actually make it to their area to perform their investigation. 

While we waited, we started our fundraising to move to Malawi. We took advantage of our girls not being home and spent four months meeting (once, twice, sometimes three meeting a day) with friends, family, and churches to find ministry partners. God performed miracles and led people to come on board with us and completely fund all of our needs. It was really a big faith building and humbling time.

Meanwhile, it looked like our girls' investigation was not going to happen anytime soon. We decided to go ahead and move to Malawi and live there until we gained permission to come and get our daughters. We sold our house and the majority of our belongings. What we didn't sell, we loaded onto a 12' x 12' space and shipped our things to Malawi. We bought tickets to move in July 2013. 

A few weeks before we moved, we received a special surprise that caused us to cancel our flights to Malawi.......

Stay tuned! I promise I will update before 18 months passes by again. 

New {2016}

I am really not much of a  New Year's Resolution kinda gal. 

Living here in Malawi, Christmas and New Year's slip by kinda quiet like and if it wasn't for social media, then I wouldn't even realize  that Jan.1 marks the date you're supposed to have your list of "top 10" things you want to change about yourself.

But God had a different plan for me this year and many things that He is wanting to change in my life. The other night as I lay awake in bed tossing and turning, the whole house asleep and quiet, God spoke a word over me and it was the word....NEW. A really simple, 3 lettered word, but it had a powerful meaning for me. Starting that night, God wanted to make me new. 

He whispered a word of freedom over my life and I instantly felt like a different person.

"Do not conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the reNEWing of your mind' 

Romans 12:2 NLT {emphasis mine}

In 2013, I was a stay-at-home mom with 2 children and had a perfect little university model school  that my boys attended. The school allowed me to have 2 days all alone doing whatever my little heart desired. Almost in an instant, I became a mother of 4 (lovely but LOUD children), living in another country, having 0 days or even minutes of alone time, and became a working mom. All.at.once. It was a harder adjustment than I realized at the time, and looking back, it kicked my tail. It still kicks my tail.

Ever since I can remember, I have wanted a whole gaggle of kids. Big, loud families always looked like so much fun to me! When my own reality wasn't quite measuring up, I felt guilty that my blessings from the Lord were not filling me with joy. Things that I had prayed for, for years for were being answered. Instead of being thankful and content, I felt overwhelmed which opened the door to Satan totally kicking me in the face with feelings of unworthiness, guilt and shame. 

When parenting was super, super hard (transitions, bonding, trauma, homesickness for all 4 kiddos) it became easier to love on other kids than my own. 

A few months ago, around the 2 year mark of living and adjusting to life here, it felt like we were finally coming up for some air. I also realized that we had listed "please pray for balance in ministry and family" as a prayer request for the past 24 months straight on our newsletters. I began to really have conversations with God about if this balance was ever going to happen or if it was even possible. Then, God gave me this word, "new". I felt like He was telling me, "you don't have to keep living this way, Look! I am making you new. I am going to give you a new way to think, a new way to talk, a new way to feel, a new way to love your family, a new way to operate your days." 

I don't have to keep living in the old. I know this sounds simple or maybe even weird, but when you are struggling through your days, it is easier to just keep doing the same, old same old. Immediately God gave me some really simple and easy ideas of things I can change now. Really specific things that are bringing change and joy to my day to day living now. He is "restoring the years the locust have eaten" 

Joel 2:25.

He is giving me joy in my parenting like I used to have. He is showing me how I can create balance and really savor the season of life that He has me in now. He is also showing me that no matter where I live, or what my current ministry is, my kids and family will always be my first ministry. 

That releases a lot of guilt from this people pleaser that I am. 

I am so thankful that at salvation Christ made me a new creation. I am thankful that He promises to continue to re-new me again and again. That in Christ we just keep getting re-newed each day. We don't have to live in the same patterns, as surely as the sun rises each day, his mercies are new.

Are you a New Year's Resolution kinda gal? 

Has God given you a word for 2016?

I'd love to hear it!

Arkansas to Africa {part 10 We are Theirs}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.

Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:
Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}

Part 9 {here}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Can't believe I am on part 10 today of our story today! Am I long winded or what? 

I think I will be wrapping this up here soon...but then again, I am not sure! 

Each week I sit down to write and see where the God leads.

A few weeks after last weeks dinner, we found ourselves in a living room surrounded by other families and single adults who had a passion for Esther's House and were praying about moving to Malawi. It really struck me that God had been preparing so many other hearts, not just ours. 

We ate and got to know one another. We shared our stories and shed some tears {public speaking is always awkward for me, especially if it involves something personal}.

I remember clearly that we met on a Friday night and our file and our girls' file was going to court 3 days later on Monday in Africa. That night, our timeline was asked about several times, and we still didn't have a clear answer.

This was October, and we were given some time to all really do some soul searching and make sure we could look our board in the eyes with 100% confidence and say that we felt God was telling us to move to Malawi.

In November, right before Thanksgiving, we found out that we passed court for our girls!!! The girls were officially ours and we were theirs. Just typing those words out brings back so many emotions! We also told our board we were 100% in to serving at Esther's House. We didn't know how it would all work out, but we all trusted that God would work out the details.

We began the paper work to turn into Homeland Security and the US Embassy for our girls AND we also tackled our lengthy application to work with Pure Mission. You could say that we were drowning in paperwork, but all those years in the adoption process had trained me to fill out paper work like a boss, so we tackled it with excitement and anticipation!

At that time, we estimated that we would be able to travel to bring our girls home in February and then hopefully move in May. We sent out this Christmas card to all of our friends and family letting them know our BIG news. Christmas was filled with gifts of pink jammies,  purple snow suits and baby dolls for little sisters.

But, what we should have learned by this point was that adoption timelines are as fluid as jello, we would soon learn some news that would change up all our plans......

Stay tuned for Part 11 next Friday!

Today I am linking up with Casey Wiegand and Oak + Oats.

Arkansas to Africa {Part 9- Stepping Out}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.

Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:
Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}
Part 8 {here}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So last time I posted, I left off with some words that David's mentor had challenged him with...
 "What are you doing about it? Are you pursuing what God is asking you to do? or are you just talking about it? God is not held by space and time. If this is what you feel like God is calling you to do, then step out and pursue it, He'll work out the rest."

Pretty soon after this conversation, God gave us an opportunity to step out in faith. David's mom purchased our "soon to be girls" some dolls that were made by Nehemiah's Wall. Nehemiah's Wall is a support mechanism for the work being done at Esther's House. We had heard of Esther's House, as the missions pastor at a large church in our area (also where we both grew up going to school) had co-founded the orphanage. We knew it was in Malawi, but at the time, could probably not point out Malawi on a map. David decided that night he was going to call Doug (missions pastor) the next day and see if Esther's House might be a good fit for our family.

The next day rolled around and David got ready to call Doug. I nervously started having second thoughts. Would anyone think we would be an asset to their ministry? Would our indefinite timeline cause us to be looked over? Oh my goodness, are we really going to do this? [Insert butterflies and nervous laughter]

By that evening, we had connected with Doug and had a future date set to meet up for dinner and talk about the ministry at Esther's House and our family. 

We counted down the days until that meeting. 
We met at an Italian restaurant with Doug and his sweet wife and talked about the vision of EH, our family, our background, strengths, education. We left feeling very much like EH was exactly the kind of ministry we were looking to serve in. Orphan care, widow care, feeding centers, sustainable projects for the surrounding communities, family preservation.

To us, it seemed like our dream job...but would they feel the same about us? 

I LOVE these beautiful water-color map prints from Jessica Illustration etsy shop

Linking up today with Casey Wiegand and Oak + Oats.

Arkansas to Africa {Part 8-Lots of Talk}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.

Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:
Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We came home from Haiti with a stirring in our hearts to do international missions.

We really wanted to do something with orphan care.

We especially wanted to do work that aided in family preservation.

We felt like God was pointing us towards Africa.

That was all we had at the time. 

We also felt incredibly stuck.

We had invested 2 years time in waiting for a referral (match) with not much forward progress.  We didn't feel like God was leading us to stop pursuing adoption, and we didn't want to either. 

If you have ever been around international adoption much, you know how hard it is to move homes during the adoption process, let alone countries! Everything (home study, USCIS approval, etc.)  is tied to your address. So, in our minds, we needed to wait until our adoption was finalized, before pursuing international missions.

So, we chatted, and dreamed, read books and piddled around researching on the internet; but mostly we just talked about where we felt God was leading us. We would sit around with some of our favorite friends (who just so happen to be moving here soon, eek!) and talk, talk, talk about our futures and life overseas.

In the meantime, we switched adoption agencies, and the country we were adopting from. We received a referral and over an 8 month time period, passed court and then lost the referral. It was devastating. 
And then, we were connected with 2 little sisters who were 2 and 4. They were paper ready and had been waiting for a family for quite some time. God did some amazing things to confirm that He wanted us to pursue the girls. We excitedly and nervously, I might add, started the process to adopt them.

During this time, David went out to dinner with a man that was mentoring him at the time. David shared with him that our family felt called to do some type of orphan care overseas. But, that our adoption was starting over at square 1. We were kinda at a stale mate. And then his mentor said some simple words, that were life altering for us. He asked, "What are you doing about it? Are you pursuing what God is asking you to do? or are you just talking about it? God is not held by space and time. If this is what you feel like God is calling you to do, then step out and pursue it, He'll work out the rest."

So we did.........

Quote via Pinterest {here}

Stay tuned for Part 9 next week!

Linking up with Casey Wiegand and Oak & Oats.