May 2008 we were preparing to board a plane for Honduras to
begin our full time ministry. We sold a lot of our stuff, and placed the rest
in storage as advised by some really smart people whom we look up to. We were
scared and excited about what our future had in store for us. However, we knew
that God had ordained our plans, and prepared the road before us. Knowing this
helped ease some of our anxiety, though not all of it, we had to learn to fully
trust Him. We really wanted to trust God, trust that He would provide for our
needs. After that first year of full time ministry, we experienced God in ways
that we never dreamed would be possible. We learned that sometimes you have to
step out in faith to meet God on the road. He is waiting for us to say “here we
are, we put all of our faith in you”. When we left the U.S. in 2008, we had a
small amount of money coming in, what I called our ramen noodle budget. We were
not sure that all of our needs were going to be able to be covered each month due
to the lack of funds. We stepped out in faith, and answered His call on our
lives. We never missed a meal, nor did we ever miss a payment on a bill that
was due. He provided for us and has ever since.
Over the past seven years, Honduras has become a second home
to us. In some instances, it has become more comfortable and easier to live
here than it was to live back in Arkansas. While we have been here we have made
deep relationships with both the American staff, and the Hondurans that we work
with. Corbett is close to the ladies that work on the farm and the ladies that
come to the farm every week to sell baskets. I am really close to a handful of
families that live in a neighborhood that the ministry has adopted called the
invasion, or Ocho De Octubre. Everything is comfortable and familiar, except
for maybe my Spanish (it seems to get worse as the years go by).
When we stepped foot on ground here in Honduras it felt
right, however, it did not feel permanent. In 2013 I felt God was working on
something else for our lives, we did not know what it was or when it was going
to happen, all we knew was God had plans for us. We began praying for God to
reveal what was going on. We had Seth in 2014, so we thought that maybe Seth
was what the big change was going to be. Seth is truly a gift to us and his
arrival changed our lives. He, however, was not the big change. In January of
this year, God started to reveal bits and pieces of His plan to us.
We have come to a fork in our journey. We could continue to live the comfortable life
He has provided for us in Honduras, or we could accept His new plan that He had
for our family. We wrestled with this new direction for several months. Finally,
the end of May we decided to say yes, without fully understanding His desires
for us. As I mentioned earlier, we have
learned to step out in faith and follow his lead, we put all of our trust in
Him and accepted the new direction He had for our lives. As soon as we said
yes, everything started to fall into place. We accepted a volunteer position
for Mount Sequoyah Assembly as a host family. (Check out www.mountsequoyah.org – it’s an amazing
ministry!) We will be living on property and helping guests during the evening
times. Corbett has been offered a position with an Orthodontist office, and I
will be heading to the University of Arkansas where I have been accepted into
the School of Agriculture. I will be working towards a degree in Agriculture
Management and Marketing and a double minor in Agriculture Technology and
Environmental Science, Soil and Water – (with hopes of broadening my knowledge
of coffee). God has opened the doors for all of this to happen and blessed us beyond
our imaginations.
August 20th we will board a plane and head back
to the states to begin our next journey. We find ourselves extremely scared,
sad, and excited for what is in-store for us for the next two years. What we do
know is: God has paved the road and provided for us. The degree I am going for
will hopefully open more doors for us. What we do know is we are leaving Honduras
for at least two years. But we are not
leaving the mission field, our mission field is just being relocated for the
time being!