Moving Forward

It seems that the past couple weeks since we've been here, a theme has continued to pop up and it's simply to take things one day at a time and just move forward. This has been the case especially when dealing with the shipment of our things from the states to St. Kitts.  To begin with, the shipment cost way more than we anticipated, but we just trusted the Lord and moved forward, trusting that He would provide.  After the shipment arrived on the 13th, we went the next day to the shipping company's office where we received our documents to take to the port to receive our cargo.  We went as soon as the port opened the next day at 8 am and it was a good idea because it is crazy this time of year with the Christmas season.  We went to find out that our stuff had not been moved from the warehouse down by the water, up to the warehouse where it gets cleared.  We waited until the next day and they told us the same thing, "it still hasn't come up yet." So obviously this is getting frustrating and our patience is truly being tested because we wanted to be able to get our stuff so we could move into our apartment ASAP.  So normally the port isn't open on Saturdays but they had to open because they were so behind on everything. We went early again on Saturday morning and finally saw all 7 pallets of our stuff but had to wait for a customs officer to come and clear it.  We saw the woman who cleared all of the Grayson's things and asked her if she could help us.  She directed us to another woman named Keisha who began the process of going through each and every box along with 3 other co-workers.  After a long while of moving boxes off of pallets and letting them tear through everything, we saw the woman who cleared the Grayson's stuff talking with Keisha and we overheard her telling Keisha that we were missionaries and we're doing good work throughout the community in St. Kitts.  Shortly after that Keisha said, "Alright that's good, we're good here."  The amazing thing was that they stopped halfway through the pallet that had our TV (which would have been charged a ridiculous amount of duty tax).  It was literally right before you could begin to see the TV, PTL!  Keisha took our form, disappeared for awhile and then emerged with the form with a large figure on it, a very LARGE figure on it.  Brandon and I looked at it and our hearts stopped.  We asked her if that was what we had to pay and she replied "Oh no, it's all free, you don't have to pay anything."  PTL once again!  After going through the rest of the process, we finally got all of our stuff out of there and moved it into our new place.

We plan on making Keisha and some of the people at the port cookies or a cake to thank them.  God is amazing and gave us crazy awesome favor the entire day. Just keep moving forward and do the next thing, trusting the Lord the entire way, knowing that He is in control and He has the entire blueprint, we just have a snapshot of it.

The Last Two Weeks

Ah, where to begin, you all know the insane journey we had to get here, and things have only slowed down a little since we arrived. Once we got here, everyone but myself and Audri seemed to battle with some sort of illness; Luke and Keaton with colds, Brandon feeling completely run down and exhausted, and Wendi, poor Wendi, with strep throat which included a fever and rash that broke out over her entire body. Thankfully, the Lord has healed them and they're all back to good health.

The last week and a half, Luke and Brandon have been serving a woman in our bible study, by helping her paint and fix up her home. This has been no small undertaking. One of the days I went with the boys to help them out with the painting, and this "house" was like nothing I've ever been in before. I walked in and  immediately wanted to leave because the conditions were so terrible. It broke my heart to imagine that people, not just here, but all over the world live like this. As I was painting I was praising and thanking God for all the comforts he's blessed Luke and I with. Despite the working conditions, they've spent endless hours there making it more livable.

Last weekend we also celebrated Audri's 3rd birthday! It was such a great day for her. She had so much fun with her friends and all the CAKE!

We've been working on getting a weekly routine down, filling our days with service projects, Mommy group, bible study, grocery shopping, basketball games, beach/pool days, and the occasional trip to Rituals for breakfast.

Today we spend the afternoon at the pool and tonight while Luke and Brandon go to coach their basketball game, Wendi and I are going to try to have a movie night (that is if Audri and Keaton will let us). The exciting thing about today though is that we went to look at an apartment for us to live in! We found the listing for it online, and when Brandon contacted the woman who posted it, she knew who he was because she listens to him on Dominion Radio! So like I said, we went to check it out today, and we really liked it. The price is right in our budget, it's a safe area, and it's only a five minute drive from the Grayson's. We told her that we were going to pray about it and that we would let her know by the end of the week. So please be in prayer that we would have the wisdom to know if this is the place God has for us.

It's been a crazy two weeks, to say the least. Trying to adjust to a new lifestyle is no easy task. We've definitely had our moments of homesickness, and there's not a day the we don't think about all of our friends and family. We miss everyone so much, and please keep us, the Grayson's, and the people of St. Kitts in your thoughts and prayers.