Happy Anniversary!

Wow. As the kids say, "I can't believe we've been here a year!"

A Year. What's in a year.

Leaving family and friends. Making home in a new country with 12 bins of personal belongings. New friends. New church. Relearning how to cook with new local foods. Our first year of homeschooling. Eyes opened to a new spiritual world. Heart open to receive a new way of life. Daddy home! Starting of a new church. Forging relationships with the kids in our village. Persevering through old struggles of depression. Being broken. Learning to receive God's free gift of joy and freedom again. Focusing on erucharisto (giving thanks in all things). Work permits. Hydroponic and microgreen business off to a great start.  Buying land. Applying for residence. Thinking of moving into a shipping container! Waiting with anticipation to see what God is going to continue to make out of these ruins!

Microgreens are growing

1000 mahogany trees to plant on the property

Our view .....one day



Taking in the hilltop view again



These ferns were burned only 3 months ago!



Hanging out in our jungle!

 

That's a small nutshell. There are paragraphs of words that come to mind for each of those miles stones but there is one common thread that I've been learning to focus on for all of them. Hands wide open. I'm learning to keep my hands open. Open to receive what God puts in front of us. You know how easy it is to give thanks for those good gifts and those great moments in life. Yes, we all know the joy of that gratitude. But, what about those moments that seem not so good to us. Is that a bad gift from God? Punishment?  A mistake? The enemy? I know we've all had these questions. But what if we choose to say "Yes". Yes, to what we see as bad, but is given to us to refine us, change us, give us victory, see miracles, draw us in to a closer relationship with the God? What if we have opportunity to make God greater than us, greater than we thought we could be. What if every challenge was seen as opportunity for God to arise? We might have heightened sense. We might be broken. He might be made strong in our weakness. YES!

 

In our year we have been faced with all this. I have seen miracles happen for us. We truly have realized that "there is no fear in love".

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

 

So much going on in our lives and yet we have peace, confidence, and faith that He will never leave us and forsake us, (Deuteronomy 3:18) and He wants to give us his beloved, good gifts (If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11) We don't make enough to live off yet but God shows us daily how He can and will provide for us. It's truly amazing. We are free. We are free from worry. Worry free from thinking that if we don't work hard enough or plan well enough or earn enough that we won't make it. That's not the life he wants for us. Like our earthly fathers we see that he delights in giving us his children good gifts. He wants to. But rarely before did we have room for Him to do so. We did it on our own.

 

You know, the thing that stirred us to make these major changes in our life was the fact that we were no longer chasing our dreams. Early in our marriage and relationship we were big dreamers. We stopped. We needed and wanted it back. And so we made some life changes. Can I tell you, those dreams are created in each of us by our creator. They are GOOD gifts. Now can I tell you that it brings me to tears to see God unwrapping 15 year old dreams for us. Yes! Detail by detail it is still amazing me. Even this week as we I think back before we came. Our ideal was to have a business here where maybe one day we could return to Canada for long periods. Seeing where the business is headed that could look like a real possibility. And I know those were God inspired dreams that He is fulfilling.

Chad said good bye to a well paying, secure job because we had talked about working together even before we got married. We had interests in property management, house designing and flipping, running a B&B, realestate, being self sustaining, growing healthy food, and living outdoors. Do you know what? All of these are on our horizon. Left to our own devices we would have picked "one' dream.....yielded to God's devices we are being blessed with all of them on the horizon! Seriously. I wish I had the time to be able to share every detail about what is on the horizon here in Belize for us!

 

I will, but I want you to stay tuned for the year ahead to hear about it. So for now I will leave you with a cliff hanger and tell you we are thrilled....yes, I think we are thrilled to feel that we are ready to move. On the horizon right now is the very, very fresh thought to move into a shipping container! For the past month I have been feeling that God is going to stretch me. I think he's been gracious and given me baby steps to be able to live with even less. I think I'm ready to say, "Yes". So, we may end up in a box on a hill with limited water and or power but I'm becoming excited for the opportunity to be stretched.  We do plan to move up to the top of our beautiful hill but it may take a bit of time before we have a "comfortable" home set up. Either way, we are all in. All 5 of us are eager and trusting in our ever faithful Father!

 

Because music keeps me praising when its hard and it speaks to me so deeply I will share with you the two songs that has been on my mind for the last few weeks. I have to listen to my voice as I sing it and I'm convicted of the words that I'm singing. Are they true? One chorus recites:

Because When You Speak, When You Move.
When You Do What Only You Can Do
It Changes Us, It Changes What We See And What We Seek

Can I say that it changes me? Am I letting Him change me. Am I changing in His likeness? This is my prayer. That all he does would so profoundly change who I am, what I can do, what I can give and how I can love and show grace. The other builds me up and reminds me that God is for me not against me and there is NO FEAR in His perfect Love!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWDPJ5EslKo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mZuVoluFY

Blessing, Stephanie