Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 10.09.48 PMWe wrote a family long recap letter and mailed it to many of our supporters around Christmas. We wanted to share a few things from that with you all. 🙂
As we bring our third year in Mexico to a close, I have been thinking a lot about the dichotomy of life that has become so common place for our family, for me. The longer we are “in country” the further down life’s road we all move. Our life’s road has taken us to a new place, merging with new people in a new culture and new relationships. Simultaneously, and much to our surprise, our life back “home” did not wait for us. Our favorite past times shifted, our communities from which we came morphed and changed through construction and demolition, and our close friends and family made new close friends and many new memories without us. It turns out that the old saying, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”, is true. We can not have this new life God has given and hold onto the life we left behind. We are wrestling with this concept of “home is everywhere, and home is nowhere.” The past three years have reshaped us into something new, something we didn’t see coming, something that forces us to rely even more heavily on Jesus and seek after the Kingdom of God as our “Home.”

 

I was always told that the older you get, the faster time moves. I never thought much about that. It’s not that I did not believe people when they said it, I just thought it was something that would happen“then” and not something I needed to worry about “now.”Well, they were right, and“then” has become “now.” This year has come and gone so quickly, I feel as though I have had no time to truly reflect on the things that God has been doing. So, when I had a little time on my hands in December, I sat and just reflected.

 

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 10.09.38 PMWith changes and new challenges and new frontiers with innumerable possibilities, it seems as though so many things could have gone wrong over these past 12 months, but they didn’t. It was not until sitting down and looking backwards that I realized how little thought I gave to what could have gone wrong over the past year. Maybe it is a sprinkling of spiritual maturity, or maybe it is (finally) learning to trust in God a little more, but looking back and seeing the way that He masterfully steered our lives around every pothole and wrong turn has me filled with thankfulness and great excitement about where He is taking us in the future. This year brought new roles and responsibilities to what we do with Back2Back. Anna took on the full role of captain of the San Jose children’s home as well as the head of the pilot program Children & Families in Transition (CFT) that is seeking to reunify children with their families in a safe and healthy environment. I (Andrew) spent much more time working on the Mexico communication and development side of the ministry while continuing to work with teams and site administration here in Cancun. As we look back and celebrate what God did this past year, we can not help but dream about what He has planned for 2015!

 

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We are so thankful for the roots and heritage of where we come from, but God is showing us that our roots are what allow us to step out in faith and grow new fruit-bearing branches. The lessons we learned and steps of faith we took often result in taking us somewhere new. If we are not somewhere new, than perhaps our steps were not big enough… For us, our steps and branches led us far from home, but for others, those steps may have nothing to do with physical location and everything to do with emotional or spiritual location. What we have learned this year, and we pray you know as well, is that our journey of faith is taking us all somewhere new. Though we all change and move forward in this life, our “Home” is still waiting and calling. It will be a glorious day when we see our Savior’s face and we are truly home in His embrace.
A New Year