Passports, baggage, vaccines… all part of travel preparations.
The easy part.
Preparing for our Peru trip was so much harder than most people understand.
The cost was great, but I’m not talking about the financial investment. Our summer mission trip cost our family, our children, time. Which is priceless. Each meeting and appointment took us away from our young children.
Yes, I knew how much time it took to prepare, but this time my children were giving up not just one parent, but both for each meeting and each night of preparation shifted our attention away from our household and onto the responsibilities of bringing a team to a developing nation.
There were very few people who came along side of us to sacrifice their time to help our family prepare. We have a tremendous debt of gratitude to those dear friends, their sacrifices went a long way in giving us some peace through the process.
While I do understand that God is my first priority, I am certain that when I serve Him obediently where He has me, I bring Him the greatest glory. Since he Has blessed me as a mother, I do not want to serve Him in a way that drives my children away from Him. I want them to understand the sacrifice of service, and I want them to see the joy that comes from serving where you are called and for them to desire the same for themselves.
We pressed on, trusting that He had called us and would faithfully use it all for His glory, beyond what we could see in our limited vision.
The final details before our departure were certainly the most difficult for me. Annalise required many of her vaccines to be caught up (we were still in the process of finding a new family doctor after ours moved to a different state). We needed to decide where the other children would stay. Would we split them between different family members, or keep them all together? Who would care for the dog and cat? Who would look after the house?
And then the reality of both of us traveling hit.
We needed to draft up powers of attorney for each family caring for our children (we had decided to let them choose where they would stay while we traveled). We needed to have the “What If” covered and ask who would care for our surviving children if we did not return from Peru, if the unthinkable happened.
Not easy stuff.
Another aspect I was dealing with was the possibility of altitude sickness. We would be serving in an area over ten thousand feet in elevation while in Chupa, we were advised to bring medication to combat altitude sickness symptoms, but we were traveling with Annalise, and she wouldn’t be able to communicate how she was feeling with us. The doctors office was not comfortable prescribing Diamox for her since we would not have anywhere to go to monitor the dosage and efficacy. I was scared that she would show signs of hypoxia and I wouldn’t have any way to help her.
I prayed that God would make clear if this was to keep us from this mission field. He did not close the door.
I moved forward trusting that He knows how fragile my momma-heart is.
But could I serve Him fully with all of this baggage?
Could I prepare my heart in the way that I needed to? Would I find the time to prepare my testimony to share in a meaningful way, that would glorify God? Could I step out of my comfort zone in regards to evangelism?
Our team’s weekend retreat to prepare for the trip helped to soften some of the differences between us and find our connections, but there were still many barriers to cohesion. Our trip would definitely have it’s challenges.
I’ve been waiting so long to be called to a mission team, but I can’t deny the pull I feel to be home caring for my children.
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