Goodbyes are Hard

I can remember the night before we left, we had vacated the rental earlier that day and spent our last night in Canada at the best western motel in town. Sitting on the bed in the motel, with all of our belongings packed away in our luggage, I remember feeling excited. It’s a crazy feeling not having anything attaching you to any specific location. It was exhilarating and just a little scary. But it also felt very right, Cameron and I had spent so much time in prayer and seeking counsel from many wiser than us. We’d been preparing for about a year and a half, we did a course on Missions called Perspectives , which I would highly recommend to anyone whether your planning on moving out into the field or simply looking to share the Gospel to your neighbours.

That morning we left the motel at the crack of dawn (truly it was probably 5 or the 6 in the morning , all I remember is that it was super early) and drove to the Church for our send off. I was doing pretty good until I saw my dad standing by the Church side door ... cue the tears, I don’t think the reality that we were leaving our family really hit me until that moment.

Saying goodbye to my Dad before we even got in the Church just started the waterworks, that didn’t stop until we left the Church and headed to the airport. It was amazing to feel the love and support from our friends who showed up early on a weekday to send us off along with our Church elders and staff.

But the airport... oh the STRESS! I can’t tell you how many times we weighed and reweighed our bags. Trying to fit your whole life and all the necessities for a newborn in 8 suitcases was tough. I vacuum sealed absolutely everything and made the decision beforehand to roll the dice and overstuff our carryons. Truly our carryons were probably just as heavy as our suitcases. Standing in the luggage check line I was sweating it, the family ahead of me got an attendant who immediately told them their carryons were oversized and weighed them. I gulped and looked down at our carryons which were clearly larger than theirs.

Then we were called up. In my heart I was praying “please not her, please not her” and so we got the attendant immediately to her right . That was just the beginning of the small miracles... one by one each or our bags were weighed and one by one they were all just under the weight limit.. by less than a pound. Our lovely attendant asked us about our trip, we told her we were moving overseas to work as missionaries and then she spotted little Judah, and let us know that we didn’t need to pay for the extra four bags we had with us! Not only did we get through with our carryons, we didn’t have to pay for being overweight but the bags that we had come prepared to pay for were gifted for free! You would think that by now I would know better, that I would just trust in the Lord and see him work.

And so a few hours later on April 20th 2017 the exact day Judah turned 3 months old, our little family -along with my mom- took the four hour flight that brought us to our new home: the Dominican Republic.

Here’s a few pictures from our time in the D.R.