Closure.

This past week has been so incredibly long, but God has given such strength every single day.  I'm weak, and He is strong. It's as simple as that.

I wanted to share what I said at my dad's funeral on Saturday. I'm really glad I wrote most of it down...

My name is Anne and I'm Bob and Shirley's youngest child. Last night I heard wonderful stories about my dad and felt as if I heard his life story as people shared how my dad influenced them.

I too have a story to share. About eight weeks ago, my husband and I went over to my parents house and talked with my dad for about three hours. We wanted to resolve a conflict in our relationship with Dad and challenge him about his relationship with God. We had a good talk about how salvation is found in Christ alone. After talking about the need for a restored relationship with God, my dad and I were able to address the need of forgiveness in our relationship.

I'm so grateful I took that opportunity to be reconciled with my dad. Last night was an amazing time to hear testimonies of how Dad influenced so many lives. I am so thankful to hear all the kind words completing Dad's story on earth. But my greatest peace is to know that I was able to express my love to Dad before he passed into eternity.

Friday night I heard from so many people who came through the receiving line telling me about the impact my dad had on their lives. My dad had varied interests and pursued many of them. Along the way he was able to meet so many people. The one theme that many expressed to me was that my dad was extremely friendly and personable. Nat and I were talking about my dad last night and he mentioned the first time he talked with my dad was when he took a box of some of my things over to my parents after he returned from Thailand (about two weeks before I moved home from my year long stay there). My dad was sitting outside when Nat drove up and began chatting with Nat right away.

Of course my dad really knew how to talk, as I'm sure many remember!  When Nat went to ask my dad if he could have my dad's permission to marry me, I think Nat was there for three hours before my dad finally said yes. :-)

We received a lot of closure with my dad's funeral.  I know several in my family have been waking up early and thinking, unable to go back to sleep.  But the healing process has begun.  My dad had an appointed time last Monday, just as the Bible says. Hebrews 9:27 ~"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"

My dad's funeral was the best funeral I have ever attended. Nina and her sister played sweet hymns on the harp, which my dad loved. Our wonderful pastor, whom my dad really liked, preached a wonderful message on salvation. My three brothers and I each gave a testimony of my dad, and my nephew read a scripture passage from Job. I know my dad would've been very pleased with his funeral.

Nat and I cancelled the rest of our meetings (4) from the last leg of the trip we were on. We will be home until the end of May to be with my mom.  We also need to get our car fixed this week.

We weren't supposed to be home for another three weeks, but I'm really grateful to be home. What a joy to be with my family over the last several days and then to be with my church family on Sunday. Truly the Lord has been very good to me.

Funeral Plans.

We arrived home safely Tuesday morning at 1 AM. It's been a whirlwind ever since. Most of my family is in town, and my brother is coming in tonight.

Dad's funeral is Saturday morning at 11 AM, so I would appreciate prayers! Things are just about done for the preparations. God is so good!

God is good!

Last night found my husband, son, and I starting the 24-hour trek home. We were not supposed to return to base for another three weeks, but my life changed early yesterday afternoon with a single phone call.

My husband and I were on our way to have lunch with a pastor and his wife. A lady in the church was very gracious in watching Paul so we could go out to eat and Nat and I were so excited to have some alone time. Well, we never did go out to eat with the pastor and his wife. Halfway to town, we got a phone call from my brother saying my dad had died as a result of a heart attack.

Shock, denial, and tears were my response. That and the desire to return home immediately. Small problem since we were in North Dakota!

Nat and I saw the Lord's hand right away, given that our son was not there in that initial moment. We were able to return to the place we were staying, pack everything up, get Paul and leave within 90 minutes.

6 hours down the road, we encountered a snow storm in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The snow fell quickly and made a sloppy mess of the roads. We hit one particular spot of ice that threw the car into a 180 degree spin and sent us sliding into the concrete barrier. Thankfully I was in the back with Paul and was able to shield him from the rear windshield as it shattered and rained glass pieces inside the car. Add to that we were facing the wrong direction on the highway and it was snowing inside the car. We had a little situation on our hands. :)

My husband is very cool and level headed and so he calmly got out, put the glass pieces in a garbage bag we had (that's random!) and then came up with a game plan to fix it.

We stopped at Walmart for tape and cardboard and the cashier mentioned there was a service garage nearby that is sometimes opened at night. I had my doubts since it was after 10 PM, but there happened to be a man there who fixed us up with a plastic cover! It's been a noisy ride, but at least we're able to drive it home. :)

So now we're driving thru Indiana and hope to be home by midnight. We are doing a 24-hour trip in 30 hours which is kind of funny because the most we drive in a day is usually 8 or 9 hours tops.

I'm so grateful Nat and I took the opportunity to restore my relationship with my dad before it was too late. There are rough days ahead, especially for my mom, but God's timing is perfect! I'm thankful we have a couple of weeks open now to help my mom out.

Family is coming in this week, including my brother who is in the middle of boot camp. How good the Lord is to allow us to be home, and not overseas yet!

Helping.

This week has been a unique one for us on the deputation trail. Through a series of events, we're staying with a friend of an acquaintance we met at a church in Ohio one time back in February.

I think the Lord wanted us to be helping hands this week. We spent Wednesday raking for the older couple we're staying with and today we're helping the acquaintance mentioned above with unpacking at her house.

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us! Praise the Lord for opportunities to serve! We'll see how far we get today. :)

All Tuckered Out.

We went for a walk today, and apparently the fresh air was too much for our little guy!

The Letter E

I have decided that we have an "e" problem.  All three of us.  And it doesn't look like it is going away anytime soon.

What's our problem? Well it's actually very simple. People often leave the "e" off of my name -- Anne -- and attach it to Nat's name -- making his name Nate. That pesky "e" then migrates over to Paul's name in the form of a nickname, making him... Paul-e.

This whole "e" situation is ironic because it doesn't bother Nat (or Paul for that matter) at all. But it drives me nuts!

For the most part, people generally tag the "e" on at the end of my name nowadays.  Ann Williams just doesn't look right to me, so I always do a double-take when I see it and then I figure out why yes that *is* meant for me.    There are also the few times where I'm called Annie, which is a name I greatly dislike for myself. I have no problem with the name if it's an actual name for another girl. :-) Only two people in this world can call me "Annie" and for some reason it doesn't bother me when they call me that. Two older gentlemen in my church got into the habit a long, long time ago and to this day they call me Annie and so that's that.

Now when it came to Paul, I honestly didn't think a nickname was going to be derived from Paul because it's so basic and straightforward. So I was a little surprised the first time I heard someone say to him, "Hi Paul-eee!  Paaaaaul-eeeeeee!"  All I heard was "Polly" and I was horrified that my son was being called a girl's name.  Then I realized that little 'ole "e" was tagged on the end of his name, and I felt slightly better. But I still don't like the "Paul-e." :-)

But I'm genuinely confused when it comes to Nat's name because he'll introduce himself as Nat, spell it out, hand out a prayer card with it spelled out on it, and he'll still be called "Nate."   I'm not sure where the confusion comes from. :-)

In fact we were in one church recently that took it one step further and had in their bulletin, "Welcome Mat and Ann Williams." That takes the cake. :-)

Now it's second nature for Nat to introduce himself and say, "Hi, my name is Nat. You know, like gnat" as he slaps the back of his neck as if he's getting a gnat.  What's funny to watch is the people with a look of confusion on their faces before it dawns on them a few minutes later.  "Ohhh! I get it!!"

Our never-ending battle with an "e."  It's the little things in life. :-)

Big Boy!

A reader from England sent me this shirt when Paul was born and he's finally big enough to fit into it!

It says, "I love Mummy." :-)

And he just spit up all over the shirt so I'm glad I got the picture beforehand. :-)

Thanks Joycelin-Anne!

Late Night Musings.

Hubby is sleeping, baby is sleeping and I'm wide awake, which is nothing short of amazing considering we drove 9 hours through the night pulling in at 6 AM and just catching a couple of hours of sleep.  

Ahh, home! It's so nice to be home.  Clean house, clean fridge... and wrinkled potatoes.  

That last one was an oops.  In the midst of the flurry of leaving a month ago -- at the groggy hour of 6 AM -- I failed to see I had potatoes sitting in the bowl waiting to be devoured.  Unfortunately, no devouring is going to take place now.  Big oops!

Oh, going back to the clean house part, I should clarify and say mostly clean. When I walked into my kitchen this morning, I saw three stink bugs in various places with their legs decidedly pointing up.  Ignoring the little creatures, I wandered into the bedroom to see two more stink bugs in the same position and I finally realized that the bitter cold of Pennsylvania was effective in killing the stink bugs off and leaving them in the "legs up" position.  That's a wonderful solution to killing stink bugs except I don't want to keep my apartment at a chilly 55 degrees and I would rather not smash the stink bugs to smithereens since they give off a rather unpleasant smell ~ hence the name.  

That whole paragraph was brought on by the fact that there is a rather live stink bug wandering up my kitchen wall right now and I'm a big wimp at killing them. No worries though: I become rather fearless when it comes to ridding my house of bugs in Thailand, so I should be good.   Besides, the stink bug will still be there in the morning, Nat can come to my rescue of getting rid of it and he'll maintain his position of being my knight in shining armor and rescuing me from... bugs. It's all good. :-)

Wow, that was quite the rabbit trail. Moving on...

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We just returned from another tour of deputation, although this past month didn't feel like deputation as much as it felt like an extended vacation because we saw so many friends and family members.  We even ran into some missionary friends of ours at the last church we were at.  That was fun!

I feel like we made some friendships on this last trip that will become life-long friends in the ministry.  For instance, we were in a missions conference in South Carolina for four days and by the time we left, we walked away with a supporting church and the feeling that we had known the dear folks there forever.  Another meeting the Lord put together at the last moment and we ended up staying with the pastor and his family for a couple of days and discovered we got along very easily.  With the last meeting we had, we camped out at the church for a few days (in a gorgeous prophet's chamber!) and our hearts were knit together with many in the church.  

So many blessings along the way, and yet most of them don't even make it into a blog post, prayer letter, or thank you note.  Not that we're ungrateful; we just can't record all that the Lord has blessed us with. But I will share one with you as a "for instance."

One afternoon a pastor's wife and I went to a second-hand shop because she had a couple of 50% off your whole order coupons that she wanted to use. Now this shop had the best prices on clothing I've ever seen in a second-hand shop and most of the clothing was name-brand quality stuff. I have been keeping my eye out for summer outfits since the weather in Thailand is summer-oriented, so as I was browsing through the shoe section, an older gentleman came up to me and gave me a 50% off coupon. I was so surprised, but very thankful.  Since Nat wasn't with us and the pastor's wife had a 50% off coupon for me, Nat and and I returned to the store the next day so he could look for some things.  He's been looking for several items for a while now, including a suit.  Wouldn't you know, there was a suit on the rack in his size that "just so happened" to be marked down 50% already and then he was able to use the 50% off coupon too, bringing the cost of the suit to $5.00! Isn't God good?

We're currently sitting at 71% of our deputation goal and we praise the Lord for that.  We're heading to the mid-west from March to May and then we'll be in Washington and Alaska during the month of June.  We do have several dates to fill in during those months, especially for the West Coast trip.  My husband has been praying about whether we drive or fly and felt as if the Lord was leading us to fly out to Washington.  He told me the other day that he feels like he "cut the branch off the tree" when he bought our airline tickets, but he is confident that the Lord will provide the right meetings. God has never once failed us and a couple of times now He's allowed a gap in our schedule that He's filled at the very last possible minute that have been turned into the greatest blessings of all. 

So we still have a lot of travel to do in the next few months, but the end is in sight!  We've had a terrific deputation run and we really can't think of any bad experiences along the way.  As I said before, God has been good!!!

A New Decade.

My husband and I are hitting " milestone" birthdays this year - 35 and 30. Now we don't look our age (or act it - ha!) but the calendar is reminding me I start a new decade today.

I remember when I turned 10 and I was so excited to be in the double digits ... finally! But as a kid I didn't think about responsibility or just how fast 10 years went. Turning 20 begin to edge me toward that weighty feeling of "whoa! I need to be productive."

I am definitively feeling it as I start this new decade. A lot has happened in the last 10 years to make me want to make every moment count for the Lord. Having a son this past year has really made me realize the only thing that matters is my relationship with God. I often pray for Paul that he would be saved at a young age and serve the Lord with his whole heart. So much of my life was wasted before I came to Christ.

As I look back over time, I see that a decade didn't just pass me by in one big swoop. No it was month by month, week by week, day by day. I have a feeling that the next decade will go by even faster and I need to make those months, weeks, and days count... for eternity! What better way to start than by spending some good quality time with the Lord?

Of course today will be celebrated with some chocolate - times three! - because the man we're staying with is also having a birthday. I think I'm going to like being 30. :-)

In The South.

I'm not sure if this is the Deep South or not, so I'm just going to call the Carolinas the South. :-)

We left PA a week ago Wednesday and it was nine degrees - as in cold! Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 78 in Charleston, South Carolina. I was actually borderline hot today as we walked a couple of blocks to get lunch. *Happy sigh* There's a reason we are not called to a cold climate!

We've really enjoyed our stay in Charleston so far, including staying at a bed & breakfast/inn that had this huge bed in it! I was also adventurous and tried grits once more (my verdict has not changed - no thank you!). Charleston is a terrible city to drive around since there are carriage tours everywhere, so we put in a lot of walking and enjoyed taking the boat to Fort Sumter, which is on an island.

Paul was a fantastic baby all day long and was a huge hit on the boat... not too hard when you're the only kid in the entire place!

More adventures await us in the morning!