Dear friends,
First of all, Merry Christmas! Emmanuel, God with
us... this is truly a reason to celebrate! And although I know the true
meaning of Christmas, with all the busyness, it still takes me a while
to weave through the commercialized Westernized 'Holiday' season, and
really savor our Savior's birth.
I just watched a 5 minute video clip
from a group called Journey of Faith who 'spontaneously' started
singing in a mall last week... well worth watching! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnt7euRF5Pg
Quick update on our housing situation... Praise the Lord, we have a contract pending on our house!
What
most of you don't know is that we have another house that we were
unable to sell a couple years back... No, we aren't that rich... I
worked for the largest builder in the area for 6 years and as an
employee, I was able to purchase houses at 10-20% discount. So we did!
However, when the housing market took a plunge a couple years ago, we
were unable to sell the house but we decided to proceeded with buying a
smaller house anyway, to save on our monthly costs. We've been renting
the larger house out in the meantime.
All in about a weeks time,
right after we
decided to postpone moving to Belgium, we received news from our rental
agency that our renter was moving out end of December AND a family at
church said that they were ready to move forward with the purchase of
the house we are living in now and had been trying to sell!
It also
happens to be that if I were to refinance our rental house right now, it
would lower the interest rate by almost 3%! But we have to be living in
the house to get that rate...
Hmmm... I think God is up to
something here! To make a long story short: we will be moving to our
'rental' house first week of January and closing on our other house
shortly thereafter! Through all this I am reminded of Acts 17:26b
"And He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live."
In His Service,
Jonathan & Grace
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
December Update 2011
Dear friends,
God has made it clear that we are to stay put for another 5 or 6 months. Our house did not sell in November, a deadline we had put in place in order to be able to move this year. This will allow us though, to enjoy the birth of our son in familiar surroundings (mid-February) and then after Grace has recovered, we will make the international move. Given our circumstances, both our church elders and our sending agency (OM) have agreed to this new time frame.
Praise God that we have received news that the Belgian government is scheduled to handle my Belgian citizenship application in April 2012. If they approve, I will then become dual citizen (US-Belgian) and won't be needing visas anymore... which I do not have yet either. I never imagined that when I left Belgium 10 years ago, it would require so much paperwork to move back to the country where I was born! Ironically the naturalization paperwork I had to fill out was a lot less work than the visa paperwork!
Although a missionary life isn't all roses and sunshine, I am very honored and privileged to be able to serve God and His people full-time in Belgium. A BIG "Thank You' to all who have made this possible through your faithful prayers and financial support. We are very excited to be at the 88% mark in support commitments. For those of you who have already started giving, thank you! Those gifts are adding up and will be made available to us once we arrive in Belgium.
Many of you know that I am a foreman for a 3-year old landscape company. The birth of the company was clearly orchestrated by God and it has been great working closely alongside Ryan, the (Christian) owner as well as a great friend. We are very excited that God has added another Christian brother and friend to the company this week! Jim has 20+ years of landscaping experience and will be a tremendous help in leading this company as he starts taking over some of my responsibilities.
God's hand is at work in our lives, and it's exciting to see the puzzle pieces fall in place in His perfect timing! To Him be all the Glory!
In His service,
Jonathan & Grace
God has made it clear that we are to stay put for another 5 or 6 months. Our house did not sell in November, a deadline we had put in place in order to be able to move this year. This will allow us though, to enjoy the birth of our son in familiar surroundings (mid-February) and then after Grace has recovered, we will make the international move. Given our circumstances, both our church elders and our sending agency (OM) have agreed to this new time frame.
Praise God that we have received news that the Belgian government is scheduled to handle my Belgian citizenship application in April 2012. If they approve, I will then become dual citizen (US-Belgian) and won't be needing visas anymore... which I do not have yet either. I never imagined that when I left Belgium 10 years ago, it would require so much paperwork to move back to the country where I was born! Ironically the naturalization paperwork I had to fill out was a lot less work than the visa paperwork!
Although a missionary life isn't all roses and sunshine, I am very honored and privileged to be able to serve God and His people full-time in Belgium. A BIG "Thank You' to all who have made this possible through your faithful prayers and financial support. We are very excited to be at the 88% mark in support commitments. For those of you who have already started giving, thank you! Those gifts are adding up and will be made available to us once we arrive in Belgium.
Many of you know that I am a foreman for a 3-year old landscape company. The birth of the company was clearly orchestrated by God and it has been great working closely alongside Ryan, the (Christian) owner as well as a great friend. We are very excited that God has added another Christian brother and friend to the company this week! Jim has 20+ years of landscaping experience and will be a tremendous help in leading this company as he starts taking over some of my responsibilities.
God's hand is at work in our lives, and it's exciting to see the puzzle pieces fall in place in His perfect timing! To Him be all the Glory!
In His service,
Jonathan & Grace
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