The Packing begins...

DEPARTURE ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!

Well, the packing has begun.  Much of the shopping is done, house has been cleaned, research or whatever you want to call thinking through your plans is winding down, the all important lists are made!  (that comment is for my friends and family who like to tease me about such things - and no, I still don't have a master list of my lists!!) :-) and the other administrative stuff that you need to take care of when you are away for a time is 85% accomplished.  Just the packing... and repacking and repacking is the big job now and tying up all the above mentioned loose ends. 

In the photos, the stuff you see sitting on the bed is mostly gifts and items to leave in Uganda and represents about 2/3 of what we will actually take... in other words there is a little more stuff on the way.  Most of this except the tools has to go in one bag... the tools will be in the second bag as we are each permitted to take 2 bags (4 in total).  One will be for personal items, the other for things we want to leave behind.  The bag on the floor is my Kijiji find and will hopefully handle all of the above except the tools.

Yesterday the Lord just kept pouring on blessing after blessing.  So many wonderful things to celebrate in our church family... newly wedded couples, engagements and more babies on the way!  And then some further financial blessings for our journey which enables us to bless our friends in Uganda a little more.  So amazing and encouraging to us!

My Dad and Mom are doing a little better.  We have found that the longer Dad is ill the more it affects our Mom.  Dad is up out of bed and dressed most days but he has very minimal energy.  If he gets himself dressed he has no energy to wash up or shave and he basically inhabits his comfy chair for the day but still this is an improvement from 2 weeks ago.  I was reminded twice this morning of a few verses in Isaiah copied here from www.biblegateway.com .  Whatever God decides to do in our lives it would be foolish to trust our own timing of things or our own plans when He knows where things start as well as how it all ends.  That doesn't mean we will always understand what He is about but we have chosen to trust Him in this.  Sometimes it is a day at a time, sometimes we can just trust moment by moment.  We know He is keeping us.

Isaiah 55:7-9 (New International Version)

 ⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way
       and the evil man his thoughts.
       Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
       and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
 ⁸ "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
       neither are your ways my ways,"
       declares the LORD.
 ⁹ "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
       so are my ways higher than your ways
       and my thoughts than your thoughts.