God Be with You Until We Meet Again

 Much has happened since my last blog. I had hoped to update and chronicle each step of our journey, but time was limited, internet was unavailable, and I was beyond fatigued. So I will try to quickly recap tonight...
Our container was loaded in record time! The Lord blessed with many hands to make the work light. Within three hours everything was loaded and ready to go. It felt odd to watch most of our earthly possessions being driven away and then to go back into an empty house; but it was also a relief to know that all the planning, buying, and packing was finished, and we could now focus on spending our last few weeks with family and friends.
Those last few weeks flew!! We enjoyed every moment. The boys even were able to go skiing with their cousins for the first time. Except for Jimmy scaring us to death by getting knocked out and being unconscious for several minutes, they had a blast. We had dinner dates and game nights and made many precious memories which even now make me miss my loved ones so much!  Our church had their mission conference the week before we left. Unfortunately, I became sick early in the meeting which took some of the enjoyment out of it for me. I do thank the Lord that I was able to be in our commissioning service. It was a blessing to see all the friends that drove long distances to be there for us. God has been so good to our family!
When we first booked our tickets, I was afraid to have expectations of who would see us off because the airport is 2 1/2 hours from Hoven. Boy, was I surprised to find out that almost 50 family and friends were coming to see us off.  (More would have come, but I shared my sickness from the week before.) My parents and we went to Bismarck the night before and enjoyed some last-minute time together. The next morning we all met at Perkins for breakfast. It turned out to be a great time of fellowship with time for pictures in the parking lot. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and check-in was quick and uneventful. Praise the Lord for that! The Lord allowed me to have a few moments with each person that came saying our goodbyes. Let me tell you-semantics aside- goodbyes are HARD!!! Yes, we know that we will meet again in Heaven no matter what. But we also know that a lot can happen in four years...  Anyway, with tears for what we were leaving behind and anticipation for what we were facing, we stepped through the security check point and beyond the reach of earthly family and friends. Our airplane adventure had begun. We were on our way to Ghana!
 I am running out of time so the rest of my recap is going to have to wait for another post... By the way, any grammatical mistakes are to be blamed on Jesse who keeps interrupting me with school questions. Doesn't he know that this blog is more important than his schoolwork? ; )