Well, after much anticipation, we are on furlough!  We have spent the past month focused on visiting as much of our family as possible as we have missed them dearly. We were blessed to spend some quality time with family as we drove up the east coast of the U.S.  It has been fun, comforting, relaxing, and a little crazy…but now it’s time to get to work!  Yes, I said work.

As we continue to learn what it is like to be “career missionaries,” we are learning that furlough does not mean vacation.  Sure, we get to enjoy some creature comforts we have missed over the past few years and visit with friends and family, but there is a lot of work to be done.  Between the many opportunities we have scheduled to meet with everyone, we will be speaking at 5 churches, integrating with and learning more about our sending organization’s inner workings here in the U.S., spending a week volunteering with our sending organization’s Faith Beyond the Pews ministry, continuing our discipleship meetings via Skype back in Guatemala, meeting regularly with the team in Guatemala to help guide the ministry as we can from here in the states, and meeting with some key players here in the U.S. who hopefully will be instrumental in taking our work in Guatemala to the next level.  I also, of course, have volunteered for a few opportunities to preach and teach while we are here!  Aside from all of that, we hope to straighten out any personal paperwork issues we couldn’t handle while in Guatemala like updating our driver’s licenses and long overdue doctors’ appointments.

We’ve only been here about a month and we already find ourselves thinking sometimes that we need a “vacation” from our furlough…hahaha  We are learning to take to heart what other missionaries have shared with us when they’ve told us “make sure to make some time for yourself because your furlough is not a vacation and it will be exhausting.”  We have, thanks to the advice of these veteran missionaries, carved out some time to enjoy ourselves and have fun!

Please continue to pray for us during this time of transition into another new aspect of our service as missionaries.  We are looking forward to seeing all of you with whom we have plans and if you would like to see us and haven’t gotten in touch with us yet please do as we’d like to see as many of our friends, family, and ministry partners as possible during our time in the states.

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