Sweaty, full heart

Being awake at this hour calls makes my stomach growl. So I write with sticky peach on my face and sticky sweat covering every other surface area. I need a shower (as does my wonderful husband who is still working back at the house) but I wanted to say public ally that God is caring for us through friends in amazing ways.

3 of the last 4 days we’ve had friends come help. Almost like they were scheduled work days #2, 3 and 4. But most weren’t scheduled. Kinda like pop-up gatherings of people to sing (what’s that called? My brain signed off hours ago). Like that, only people texted to ask if they could come help. And worked hard. Really hard. And did it with such joy.

I’m all the more grateful because the kids have been sick. Not horrible but a cold and a small D–but enough the we couldn’t take them to a sitter all day Wed when we’d planned to get so much done.

Last night this hit me–again, God is saying, “Angie, it’s not all up to you. I’m going to love you and provide help for your family through your community of friends.”

Oh, did I mention I haven’t had to worry about cooking for 3 days as meals just come to my door?

I’m now here at a Wycliffe ministry apartment tonight as Scott dropped me off and returned home to work longer. (He hopes to be done by 2:30 am) He’s been an incredibly hard worker. The late night Is even after Dan stayed with our kids so I could pack and we had the entire Hand family and Amanda workin’.

It does take a village to get us outta town!

Looking forward to teary hugs and telling lots of friends how much we love then and will miss them at a farewell gathering from 3-5:30 tomorrow.

Pray one if our beloved sitters can come play with kids tomorrow am for even an hour so Scott and I can get a nap in.

Goodnight!

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Showered and good night

Jerky, anyone?

We feel a bit like a jerky-making plant today. A neighbor is watching the kids all day so we can pack, using a vacuum. Who knew ziplock suck-the-air-outta-all-our-clothes bags would be my new favorite thing! The end result of each bag is clothes jerky. Mmmm.

Looking forward to a shower and needed date night tonight!

pray for us while we travel?

When I first played out the reality of what 25 hours of travel might look for our family, I started to panic. Then, quite quickly, God gave me an idea: ask people to sign up to pray for a time slot. My heart filled with hope at what that would mean–a tangible reminder that friends are with us in this! 

So, pick a slot and pray for whatever portion of that hour you’d like. If the time slot already has a name, just add yours to it! We welcome lots of people praying for us as we step out in faith on this next adventure and assignment.

pray: buyers/renters/borrowers for our earthly things

With Scott next to me, as we both work on our computers (him talking to our new Australian bank) and me figuring out selling/loaning our stuff via an online garage sale–it feels a bit like NASA control with a bit of the “I gotta make the donuts” tired donut man thrown in. Happy Labor Day to us! Glad we got in a little splash pad with friends today for some fun before we hit it hard again.

Would you pray for:

1. A renter for our townhouse? I’m not worried, glad to say. More expectant to hear who He has for the home He’s given us. 
2. A buyer for our car? I’m a bit anxious about this, honestly. It’s a great car but would have a better market in the mountains, I think, with the all wheel drive (I think it has AWD, that is). God knows and as much as we’d like to get as much as we can for it so that we can use it to buy a car in Australia, He’s provided and will provide for what we need, I know. 
3. There’s still lots of items we need to sell or loan to friends/coworkers here for the 2 years we’re gone. I got the bulk of the last things posted today and now it’s a bit of a game of when do we have people come get the things without us eating and sitting and playing on the floor in an empty house. Friends came to get our bedroom set (sans the box springs and mattress) on Saturday and that made things so very real.

Testing out suitcases

Joshua’s taking out the suitcase for a dry run. And it got a little more real when Scott just opened an Australian bank account. Who knew you could do that from 14 time zones away!

Soon, I’ll share a link for how friends can sign up to pray for an hour of our journey as we fly on sept 14th.

aint no party like a work-on-the-house party

19 adults and 3 kids came to help us for our house work day and it couldn’t have gone better. We’re prepping it to rent when we move Down Under.

To protect the innocent (and the sweaty), I’m not posting the great pictures I have of friends helping. To imagine the smell, simply shut your eyes and imagine a fragrance that combines sweat, paint, WD-40 and Papa John’s pizza.

Lizzy and Joshua taking off her decals before the painting party started. God gave me the idea to have her involved in the change and I was surprised how OK she was with it. We even prayed a little bit for whoever would live in her room next.

The Olympic Gold goes to my hubby who mounted the ladder and completed the crazy task of changing a light bulb in a corner of the ceiling I’m almost sure should have required an oxygen mask. I don’t think the architect realized his/her folly.

Friends painted, played with our kids, Magic Erasered all our baseboards (have you tried those wonderful cleaning rectangles? I’m buying stock), watched our kids, installed 2 sets of replacement blinds, washed light fixtures, worked on plumbing issues, wiped down blinds (which may or may not have ever been washed in 4 years), painted (more), let Joshua nap at their house, took Lizzy to the pool, WD-40d doors…the list goes on. I mean, friends burned through our to-dos faster than we could have hoped.

We started with 29 tasks, taped all over the wall with our Australia mirror. And then we even added some more tasks when the afternoon crew came. And by 4pm we were down to 3.

My heart is so full and so grateful.

And my body’s ready for a shower. Good night!

Sweaty and ready for work day

You know it’s late when you are needing another meal and make do with a melted-in-the-microwave cheese burrito.

Scott’s sanding down the last of the spackling and I think we might be done.

Jobs posted and ready to be picked off.

Check.

Free piles of books and boxes of treasures (or just junk) our dear friends can help themselves too.

Kinda like the treasure chest at the dentist.

But different.

All the tools and such (including ladder for dreaded suicide-lightbulb-change task mentioned in last post.

Check.

Night night.

house work day on Saturday

It’s another late night ’round the Bentley estate. Tonight I’ve been busy organizing stuff to sell and stuff to loan for 2 years. Scott’s been working hard on prepping everything for our Saturday house work day. We’re grateful for dear friends who are coming to help clean, paint, spray WD-40 and more.

You’ve gotta check out how Scott described changing a light bulb, in the bottom VolunteerSpot.com task. 

plane tickets booked!

We bought our plane tickets! We’ll fly on Sunday, Sept. 14th.

Our plan had been to fly on the 3rd or 10th of September. Both days had an option for a 1-stop flight to Melbourne. It’s Orlando->Los Angeles->Melbourne and with 2 small children we’d love to make the trip having only 25 hours of travel time.

But then we got an email from the Cru leadership in Australia:

As excited as we are to have you arrive, those dates are couched around our Leadership Summit which is taking place in New Zealand this year.  This means that neither of us would be readily available to assist upon your arrival (for either date) and we really do want to help you ‘land’ well when you get here.  There are a lot of things to navigate initially and we want to be able to have the capacity to assist you with as much of this as possible.

So we booked our ticket for shortly after the leadership team gets back into town. More waiting? Lord, this is so hard! I feel like it’s treading water and we just want to be there!

“You’re not treading water, Angie,” He tenderly says to my heart. “You have opportunity to see Me at work and join Me in that work in Orlando now. You haven’t left yet. Keep watching and being available, and join Me as you see Me work here.”

And I know–I’ve known it but continue to have opportunities to trust–God absolutely knows what He’s doing. He’s not holding His breath to do work in Australians’ lives until we get there. He’s working there now and He will continue to work there.

A great example is Monash Uni (they shorten University to Uni). It’s a mere 2 miles from the Cru office and my heart’s getting stirred as I think of Jesus’ desire for those uni students to know and follow Him.

Monash enrolls approximately 45,000 undergraduate and 17,000 graduate students, making it the university with the largest student body in Australia.

Wow, did you catch that? The largest student body in all of Australia…and it’s going to be in our back yard. (Or whatever Aussie term is used for back yard. I’m bracing myself for realizing I don’t speak the English they speak. 🙂

The Cru group (called Student Life) at Monash Uni meets every week from 1-2pm on Wednesdays. Here’s a fun idea–want to add an alarm on your phone or computer to pray for them before you go to bed on Tuesday nights like tonight? With the time difference, it’s 11pm-midnight EST every Tuesday night.

Here’s a peek at the students. If you want, join the Monash Student Life Facebook group and let’s pray for them as they pop up in our newsfeed!

I wonder what God will do during that time tonight?