There are giants in the land...

It started late in May.  I woke up from a vivid dream.  In my dream it was a bright winter day.  Snow was on the mountains and I was riding in the white Volkswagen Planters van, pronouncing Albanian words with the help of our colleagues, Arjan and Mersin.

The night before the dream I had been working on designing a photo book of images from Albania.  I always thought it would be nice to have a book of this sort on our display table when we shared at churches, but I never had the time to design one. Then I was contacted in early May by our former adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services.  Would I be willing to write up a travel aid for adoptive families with suggestions to fill their days of things to see and do in Albania until they could return home to America with their children?  I kinda got a little carried away as I morphed this 'document of suggestions' with my photo book vision to yield a 24-page PDF file.  No doubt revisiting my favorite places in Albania through the images on my computer monitor instigated the dream.

So yes, my imagination has been camping out a lot in a little Balkan nation lately.  Some other signs that Albania has been on our mind include:

• Nathan bought a language learning app for the iPod last week.  We all (kids included) are having fun with it.  Though I admit I'm getting nervous about being self-sufficient in Shqip -- you know, the kind of nervous that you push down and try not think about but really should in order to adjust your expectations to reality.
• I finished up our Field Manual for volunteers and teams coming to work with us and sent it off to Anna and Abby.  This doesn't sound very significant but it's to prepare American volunteers coming to minister with us in the village.  It attempts to address most of the basic questions a typical American visitor would raise from what to pack, how to dress, what's to eat, available ways to communicate back home, to how to prepare for ministry, books to read, etc.  Needless to say, I felt grossly unqualified to author it.  I'm sure it will undergo many revisions over the course of time.
• Nathan bought a replacement charging cord for his razor.  He was excited that it came with a European adaptor.
• We wired money over for the purchase of our car (gulp)!  It will be purchased sometime next month in Germany, driven to Albania on our behalf, and await our arrival.
• I'm starting to buy things 'for Albania' too. The pile of shopping bags in the corner of my room is starting to topple over.  On top of language acquisition, I might be panicking about luggage space too.
• Reni's birthday is at the end of the month.  You can't NOT give a four year old gifts, yet with our impending move and limited luggage space, what do you give him?  Please don't say matchbox cars.

• I have a day-by-day list of things to do before we leave for our month-long stay at Missions Training Int'l (MTI) in Colorado on August 3.  We. Can't. Deviate. From. The. List.  We want to leave for Colorado in such a way that we are pretty much just living out of suitcases when we return.  That means packing up our home of the past ten months.  Leaving Kentucky was just Phase One.  Phase Two involves things like scanning documents, backing up computer files, giving away the kids' too-small clothes, packing up our monster-sized office, organizing the storage unit LOGICALLY so when we come back for visits we can find the essentials in a reasonable amount of time...  Any other Type-As out there feel that tightness in your chest with me?
• Our fridge went out this weekend. It was probably a blessing in disguise.  Are we really going to use Worcestershire sauce in the next month? Pumpkin butter?  Did I even buy this? How many bottles of salad dressing could I possibly need? Certainly not 11! A lot of condiments went to mom and dad's house, a lot of mostly empty bottles got pitched to squeeze our essentials into a mini fridge until a full-sized replacement could be delivered. Scary thing was, cleaning out the fridge hadn't even made it onto the Phase Two list.  What else might I have forgotten?  So much to plan...

But like any story or film, it wouldn't be exciting without the element of conflict or uncertainty, would it?  

Our departure date is still based on conjecture.  We have looked at the calendar, researched details like the commencement of language classes, considered the children's school needs and determined last year that we should set our goal to leave in August.  

Then MTI revamped their programming and changed the dates of their course offerings making an August departure impossible.  So our next goal was to leave somewhere around September 8 or 9.  That wasn't a significant deviation and besides, flights are cheaper in September.  

But... we can not leave until 100% of our budget has been committed (we are currently at 84%).  We are SO grateful for God's provision through his people.  We are nearing the end, but we still can't say with certainty when we will be leaving.  This year has been full of lessons and learning, faith-stretching experiences and opportunities to trace His hand.  Yet I sense there is more He wants to teach us.  He wants us to draw closer to Him to hear what he has to speak, to learn new levels of dependence upon Him.  Because in spite of this past year, the closer we get to the end of our support raising, the bigger a hurdle that decreasing amount seems to be some days. 

Or maybe I should have known.  There are times when I feel much like the children of Israel as they looked into the Promised Land and in spite of provision through parting seas and falling manna they couldn't envision the provision to defeat the 'giants' in Canaan.  I look at our need and study our 'resources' and from a worldly perspective they don't seem to balance.  It doesn't seem enough!"

Then the other night as I'm putting the children to bed we discuss the story of the loaves and fishes and how Jesus performed a miracle that not only met the need, but resulted in leftovers.  It was a timely reassurance to my heart. We give Jesus what we have, we let him use that to meet the need with abundance. Then this morning I was convicted that I haven't been giving him my all. Like the disciples in Gethsemane, I'm still falling asleep.  

Thank you for joining with our family through your prayers and support. Thank you for following along with our journey.  For us the giants in the land relate to moving to ministry in Albania, but for you no doubt it relates to trusting for something else...  May we all have courage to be Joshuas and Calebs.