We love having a little boy now although we are more tired and busy, as I'm sure most of you can relate. Nonetheless, we're moving along, changing diapers, feeding and doing laundry, most of which is the baby's. We're so glad to be living with a family of six who are so willing to help us with any questions we have about raising this baby because we've never done anything quite like this before. It's been a lot of fun bringing him around to all our friends here and our church family, seeing everyone's faces light up when they first see him and hear the joy they feel for us as a family. Makes all those late nights kind of worth it.
I don't know about you, but change always gets to us. Obviously we have a lot of change happening in our family. New baby, a move back to Pennsylvania from a place we've called home for the past 4 years. But change always get us thinking. We think about the overwhelming place we're at becoming new parents, where we don't feel quite up to the task or adequate enough to handle the new challenges life and God are going to throw at us. We think about all the people we have to say goodbye to leaving Michigan. All the people on staff here at NTBI that we've grown so close to in 4 years, the students we've poured into, our best friends, our church here that has felt like family. We hate saying goodbye because people mean so much to us and so thinking of that makes us want to say thank you. Whether you're reading this in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Paraguay, California, Michigan or wherever, we want/need to thank you for your friendship and place you have in our lives. Our lives wouldn't have the joy it has without knowing and meeting the people we have over the years and we wouldn't make it through each day without the people we love around us. And that pushes us to thank God because we know that without Him and without His Son's death for our sins, we could not have nor feel the love of His body, the very thing that makes it so hard to goodbye. So while we get to say goodbye to some, we get to say hello to another group of people and we can't wait to see who and what the Lord brings our way and we're beyond happy to have Jude be a part of that.
Briefly the next year looks like us moving to Pennsylvania to take a year off. We'll be spending a great deal of time with our home church at South New Milford Baptist Church, serving and hanging out with our friends there. Josh will be working, hopefully with a construction company, he has two contractors to meet with we get back in town and Felicia will be working around our rental house on some products and working with the baby. We're looking forward to this time to reconnect and take a break as we've been in Michigan for the past 4 years. Thank you again for your prayers, your support and your love for us and our new son as we look to one day bring the gospel to people who have never heard of Jesus Christ.
From our hearts,
Josh and Felicia
Prayer Requests
1. We're trying to make the most of our last two weeks in Michigan. It seems like we've been here forever, in a good way, and so we have many relationships making it hard to say goodbye. Please pray for our hearts to comforted with joy and not troubled as we leave.
2. We're heading back to Pennsylvania on Thursday the 8th so if you could pray for the Lord to provide Josh with a job in PA that would allow us to keep saving money for our next step of training. Also pray for our relationship with our church in PA, that we would not just see the next year as necessary for building a partnership, but to take time to enjoy the people and our friendship with them.
3. Above all that we would trust God, and his providence, knowing He knows what we need.
