Jon and Jessica and their decisions

This post is a compilation of some of Jon and Jessica's emails to family and friends so you can catch up here and then check out their blog which is really cool!

As some of you might have known, Jon and I have been trying to buy a new house for about 9 months now. Each time we think we've found "the one", for one reason or another, we come to find out otherwise. In the midst of these times we've been anxious and feeling that there's something coming we're supposed to be doing - so we kept trying to do it - buy a house, start a family, make some career moves, etc. But none of our plans were working. Every so often one of us would throw out the "let's just sell and move to Guatemala" line. So to make a very long story short - we're "selling and going to Guatemala".

Not just Guatemala - but that is part of the plan. Jon and I are working to set up a couple different "internships" as he's calling it to spend some time with various missionaries and organizations to see what's out there and where we fit in. While we are firm believers in meeting human physical needs, we believe that good works are just that without the Gospel. So we go with the goal of sharing the Gospel - how, when and where - I don't really know.

We resigned our positions at Hefren-Tillotson this past Wendesday to be effective August 31st. Leading up to that date, we will be moving our stuff to Jon's parents' basement in Ohio and then setting off on our adventure.

Since we resigned our positions, we have had many confirmations from God that it was the right step - not the easy one - but right. At the same time, we are struggling because we don't have many more answers than two months ago.

We spent most of September traveling and spending time with Drew and Lindsay Hall, friends from our church who are in French language school in preparation of moving to Guinea, Africa to be medical missionaries. We were planning to go to Guatemala on October 13th with a short-term team from our church, and we had applied with the missionaries there to stay an extra two months after the team came back to the US. In the end, our first expected "internship" ended up being just one week. We arrived back in the US this past Sunday. It was very hard at first when the answer was "no" because I thought that was pretty much a shoe-in for our first project. But as we spent time there last week, it became clearer that God was right (duh) and that the answer was supposed to be "no". But as for what's next, that's still to be determined.

We've heard from Costa Rica. We had applied to work for two months at an orphanage there. A few days earlier, we finally came to the point of saying "Ok, nothing is working. We're going to have to get a job again". The answer came about five weeks later than we were expecting, but then Costa Rica said "yes - please come." So we're pretty excited to be going. We will be leaving January 9th and returning March 5th.

So as usual - it's really one step at a time. The future is unknown but God is faithful.

That was a compliation of their emails and thoughts and now they are in Costa Rica and you will see that they still have no idea of what God has in mind for their family. Pray for them that God will show them exactly what he has in mind for them.