House Blessing

We are officially settled in our new home. After five months in Batavia we had a party and blessed our new home. We had over fifty people including kids. Luckily our basement is now completely finished and the kids had a ball playing with toys and the fooze ball table.

Our dear friend, Jim, led the prayers of blessing over the house. His theme was that our house was a sanctuary. A safe place, a holy place, a protected place, church, a shelter. With so much of the world, their home is barely a shelter, not safe and not protected. We are so blessed to have the physical things that make our home a sanctuary, but the spiritual part of this is up to us to create and maintain. We need to have our house be a holy house, one that our family and those entering the house can experience God’s love and grace. I pray that as we strive to have a house full of love, laughter, peace and hospitality, we can have others feel safe, at home, and loved here.

 Yet, even as we plan our life here in Batavia, we are uncertain of how long God will have us here. With Pete no longer working for Alpha, we wonder what God’s next step for us is. I feel a bit like the Israelites who left Egypt for the Promised Land, only to find that they were in the wilderness. They would travel until God said to pitch their tent and they would stay until God said move. Then they would pick up their tent and journey until God said stop, and they would stop.

Honestly, the idea of picking up my tent again is scary and I feel weary at the thought. But I know that God has never yet given me something that I can’t do and that hasn’t been a blessing in the process and in the end. Some days I dance alongside God on this journey and others I just put one foot in front of the other.

God is faithful, God is good, God is trustworthy. We ask for your prayers as we enter yet another transition. I frequently pray Romans 5: 3-5. We can rejoice in times of suffering, because God is molding us into his likeness. We are growing in perseverance, character and hope in Him.

-Joy