The last several months have been a whirlwind of long days, travel, and transitions. Back in March Roberta and I officially made the decision to resume our work at Casas por Cristo (CpC).  This decision spurred a flurry of activity to get prepared. We began the process of fundraising, preparing our home in Mt. Carmel to sell, packing, and finishing up our jobs, not to mention Roberta was pregnant and trying to prepare for our first child.  I then drove the 1,400 miles between Mt. Carmel and El Paso twice, unloaded all of our belongings, and spent two weeks building in Guatemala.   Finally, it appears that I have reached a more normal pace of life.

This normal pace has finally given me an opportunity to slow down enough to rest up a bit, as well as reflect upon all the change we have just gone through.  During this time of reflection I cannot help but feel an incredible amount of humility and gratitude.  We do not deserve the love that has been shown to us during this transition.  To the countless people who helped and continue to help make this move possible, I can never repay or express my gratitude enough for your friendships, hard work, time, financial giving, and love. You make us feel like the luckiest people in the world.  I'm not sure if the newness and excitement of being back here will ever wear off, but for now we are more excited about life than we perhaps ever have been.

As we have shared with many of you... probably all of you, it was a struggle for us to leave CpC and move back home.  Much of our discontentment made no sense to us. By all accounts we should have been happy there, and to some extent we were happy.  However, at our core, something felt off.  After being back at CpC just a few weeks, that uneasy feeling is gone.  I believe more than ever that all of our dissatisfaction was rooted in events that began way back in high school and college when Roberta and I came on our first mission trips with CpC. It was at that moment something got planted deep within our hearts.  It was that seed that lead us to do internships, and it was those internships that changed us at our core.  It ruined us in the best way possible. It broke our hearts for people living in extreme poverty with no hope of breaking free of its death grip. More than just breaking our hearts for these people, it also allowed us an avenue to make a difference.  While we deeply miss all our family and friends from back home, it feels so right to be here.  Mission work is what we were meant to do, and it feels incredible to be doing it again.  We look forward to sharing our adventures with you.  Once again, to the countless individuals that helped to make this a possibility... THANK YOU!!!