A Family Vacation

I am very excited! My husband, my children, and I are going to be driving to Utah to visit my sister Charity, her husband Johnny, and their three children. We are really looking forward to seeing them. Here’s a bit of background. Charity is 6 years older than me and we didn’t really grow up together. She joined the military right out of high school (when I was still just 12) and has lived away from Wisconsin ever since. So about 8 years ago, when she and her husband moved from Alaska to Michigan to be closer to her family, we had an opportunity to get to know them both. By this time Ryan and I were around 23 years old with a family of our own. Charity and Johnny were married the year after us and had at that time two little girls (with their 3rd child coming a year later). Spending time with them was a lot of fun and we found that we enjoyed our visits with them immensely. They were not believers and God gave us loads of opportunities to witness to them. Charity came to know the Lord and eventually so did Johnny! What an amazing blessing that is! I am so full of praise that God brought them from Alaska to hear the gospel and to save them and that He allowed Ryan and me to be a part of it!

Fast forward to present day… Charity and Johnny left Michigan and were stationed in Florida. Now their 4 year stint in Florida is up and they have been stationed in Utah, just an hour away from Salt Lake City. Can you imagine being a new believer and moving from a solid biblical church family (in Florida) into the Mormon capital of the world? Well, they have found a bible believing church founded upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they are sticking it out! An older lady from their church in Florida told them (upon hearing of their plans to move to Utah) that there was plenty of opportunity for them to minister where they were going… they just needed to be faithful to the call. And the Lord has been so gracious to fill them with a desire to be faithful and minister there, too! My brother in law is on fire for the Lord! He is growing in faith and knowledge of Jesus so much! He is studying all about how to witness to Mormon’s and has already had opportunity to use what he is learning with some Mormon’s that he’s met. Charity keeps trying to convince us to move out there so that we can be closer to them and we can all find ways to minister in the church and community. (They’ll have to be content with us visiting occasionally!)

As we are planning on going out for a 10 day visit, I am anticipating much fellowship and praise giving to the God who really does work miracles in the hearts of people all around us! I can’t wait for the conversations about God with them both as well as the trips to Starbucks (and late night ice cream shopping) with Charity. I can’t wait for them to take us hiking and exploring the mountains and the valley that they live in. I look forward to visiting their church with them and seeing how my nieces and nephew are growing up, too! I also appreciate that this will be some “concentrated” family time that we’ll have together before Ryan leaves for Cameroon, Africa (a week after we get back to Wisconsin)!

Please pray for us! Pray that we’ll have a safe trip there and back. Pray that we’ll have sweet fellowship in Jesus! Pray that we’ll have a great time and that we’ll see God at work all around us! Pray that we won’t get unexpectedly snowed in while we’re there… (They are in the mountains!). Praise God along with us for His grace in working out all the details and for His work of redemption in Charity and Johnny’s life! And however else you can think to pray, please do!