Pass the tissues, please.

I really wish that we could sit down with everyone who has been our prayer warriors, encouragers, package/letter senders, mission team members and have a heart-to-heart conversation with you about what God is doing in our lives. 

First, we would tell each of you how incredibly blessed and deeply touched we are by your love shown to our family.  We cannot say this enough!  We are completely overwhelmed by your faithfulness, by His faithfulness!

Then I would pull out a package of tissues, or a big roll of toilet paper (because we always have it handy for noses or bottoms—but in this case for my nose), and tell you that I am not sure how to begin and I don’t know where this story will end. 

A little over 2 years ago God brought our family of 4 (with one in the oven) to an island that no one had heard of except those that were sure we were coming to see Alex, Marty, and the lemurs and to make the next Madagascar movie.  From the time we got here until now, God was, and is, hard at work refining us into what He wants us to be.  We have had joys, but we have had even more challenges. 

As most of you know Andy has struggled constantly with his allergies, leading our family to move multiple times here in Madagascar.  As we reflect back on when it all began, we realized that it began earlier than we originally thought—before we moved to Tana.  Though it quickly & progressively got worse when we moved to Tana as Andy needed to add more to his normal allergy medicine.  Soon he was taking 3 and 4 medicines with very little relief.  At the beginning of this year, he added another new medicine that we hoped would give him relief.  But in the end, he was becoming more and more miserable with fewer and fewer days of relief.

After dealing with persistent red, puffy eyes, itchiness all over the body, headaches, dizziness and constant coughing and such, Andy contacted our medical department for our company.  Since we have great medical care with our company, Andy was very quickly on a plane to Johannesburg to see an allergist.  The allergist was able to determine all of the various allergens that bother Andy and recommended that he avoid all of them as much as possible and that he also receive allergy shots.  Unfortunately, allergy shots are not available anywhere on the island. 

We quickly scrambled for another option, since we did not want to leave Mada.  From what we remembered it had seemed that Andy was doing better in Antsirabe (where we had lived for language school) and perhaps the big thing that was different was that it is a much smaller town with a lot less pollution.  Andy had discovered fairly quickly after moving to Tana that the diesel fumes were very irritating to him (and the allergist had said that it could be lowering his threshold for fighting his allergies).  We were certain that we had to do something soon and moving to Antsirabe was our only hope for staying in Mada (apart from God healing him, which we have prayed for often over the last several months). 

Well…we have been here in Antsirabe for almost 3 months now and much to our dismay, Andy has not experienced relief.  We have come to realize that the burning of trash and the fumes it produces (that occurs all over the island) is also an irritating factor for him.  It is made worse by the fact that homes here are not sealed well even when all the windows and doors are closed, a lot of air can get in (mice too!).

After Andy returned from his most recent bush trip, he hit a really low point again where he was coughing incessantly and contacted our medical department again.  We were both really sad at this point because we knew that this meant a big change was coming.  Our company has tried hard to find a place to transfer us to, a place where Andy could get the necessary care and also take a new job that would fit his gifting.  A few days ago, we heard back from our supervisor that they could not find any place in Africa that would fit our needs.  Instead they offered us a medical leave of absence in the states.  We were both relieved and very sad because we had never wanted to leave Mada before our term ended.

Throughout all of this we have seen God’s hand and faithfulness.  We feel like God has been trying to show us that this is His plan for a while, but we resisted because we could not understand why He would want us to leave.  We have been grieving leaving Madagascar even before we officially knew, and now I see that as God’s grace.  At times it has been very overwhelming, but on the other hand we have felt relief to know that there is a plan for Andy to be well again.  There have been many times that Andy has told me that he is ready to be well and after reflecting on that, I came to a sad realization that over the past 2+ years here, he has been sick more than he has been well.  Especially since our move back here to Antsirabe, we have cried out so many times for Andy’s healing and this is God’s answer to us. 

Two of our greatest burdens in leaving this beautiful island have already been lifted by our loving and faithful Heavenly Father.  Our first burden was for our many people groups to continue to have hope of hearing the gospel.  Some of our missionary friends on the island will be stepping into our role when we leave and they already know Malagasy and are so excited to work with our people groups.  Our second burden was for our Malagasy family (Rinah, Zo, and their son Nambina) to have work and their needs provided for.  This same missionary family will be providing Rinah with some work and they already love them as family, like we do. 

Yesterday we told Rinah and Zo our news and it was difficult and very sad.  They were more surprised than we thought they would be and we all cried together (ok, truthfully most of the tears were mine but all the eyes were sorrowful).  Zo didn’t say a lot because she was especially sad thinking of Alleluia and how she had taken care of her from when she was so young (about 7-8 months old).  Rinah was also sad but encouraging as well saying that God’s ways are higher than our ways, but that we would be missed.  As sad as it was to talk to them, we have felt a lot of relief to finally tell them—I guess, what God had been trying to show us for a few months.  We have started the dreaded lists for packing and selling, and started going through everything again.  But, oddly enough, there is relief again.  It is so strange and yet so refreshing because I know now that it is His amazing grace to us.

We will be returning to the States in August for Andy to begin receiving allergy shots.  We don’t know how long we will be in the States, but we know that we can trust the One who knows.  We are still certain of our original call as missionaries, but we don’t know what the future holds for us in missions right now and we are ok with that.  We are just planning on following Him…wherever He will lead us.