Hard Good-byes

Saying good-bye is never easy. We are ready to start our journey in Africa, but leaving behind the ones we love is a hard thing to do. Material possessions come and go, but the love of family is like none else. Below are some pictures of our beautiful nieces who will be much older the next time we get to hug them tight. We love you, family, more than you will ever know and thank you for supporting us as we start this chapter in our lives!!

Ainsley Cate-2 months old

Noa Claire-2 years old

Jaiden Daniele-4 years old

Kali Anne-5 months old

A good friend sent us this quote earlier today:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice
Statement by african missionary David Livingstone, Cambridge University, December 4, 1857.