Packing time

Why, yes...I am almost 4 months behind on blogging.  Can we just chalk that up to a new baby and a change in countries at the same time??!!  Just bear with me, or skip a few posts.  I want to record these wild times in my life.  Praise the Lord, we're making it through!!  I wish I could really pour out my heart, but a public blog isn't the place to do that.  I think that's one of my biggest struggles with blogging...just not being able to put my heart out there completely.  So our blog feels a little vanilla, but hopefully it gives a glimpse of our family to you guys who are far away.  Well, let's be honest, it's probably just our moms who are reading at this point.  : )

 

Anyway...last time I blogged, I shared a little about our last days in our past country.  I think in those last few weeks, my heart just went into overload and shut down.  I've sorta been in survival mode/a little bit of shock for months.  About 2 weeks ago I was FINALLY able to just cry and cry about all that has happened in our lives...all the transition, the stress, the times of fear, the exhaustion.  I felt like that was a good step.

 

All that to say, as we left our country, I sorta felt like it was a dream.  So surreal that we were leaving.

 

For our last week, some amazing friends came from a neighboring country and helped us pack and get ready to leave.  Hannah was 6 weeks old, waking up in the middle of the night, and I don't think I could have gotten the house packed without them! 

 

One of the many blessings was that their kids came, too.  It was so fun to watch our Z come back to life with the friendship of some other boys his age.  Thank you, Lord!  Our first months were so hard for him, but I'm coming to a place of so much more peace about that.  We don't do him any favors if his life never has struggles, but when he experiences hurt, and we get to love him and point him to Jesus, I think that prepares him for real life.  So the raw pain in my mama's heart is giving way to something more like gratefulness and open-handedness as I trust our Father to work in my kids' lives.

 

Beautiful girls with matching hair!

 

All the kids made clone masks on night.

This is so my style..."Let's start a craft right before dinner and add madness to this time of day."  Then once we get into it realizing that the masks keep falling apart, the kids are grumpy about it, and my friend is looking at me like I'm crazy, but somehow, bursts of creativity in my day are life-giving to me.

 

Hannah hung out and had lots of people to love on her.

 

 

This girl was an amazing servant to our family.  She researched ahead of time to plan fun things for the kids, she put Hannah in the Baby Bjorn when Han wouldn't stop fussing so that I could keep packing.  I am crazy about this girl!!

 

We got to celebrate Jessie's birthday...with a doughnut cake!  What a fun kid he is (with the heart of a warrior)!

 

Our tree had apricots in season while they were there, and the kids ate a TON of apricots.  I am SOOO thankful that we got to see the apricots cause I had been excited about them all year.

Here's servant-hearted Toby picking fruit for the "queen."

 

See a couple of the orange fruits hiding up there???  By this time we (and the neighbors) had sortof picked most of them!

 

I wish I had pictures of Kristi and I working, of Tim helping John, of all of us together, and of all of our packing.  Ahhhh, so thankful for friends.  Kristi was there to hear my heart, point me toward truth, and encourage me not to just shove all my feelings under the rug.  I was in pretty major denial at this point, and she helped me to see that I needed to take time for healing.

Just can't say enough how thankful I am for this family!!!