Where we have been...

The beautiful song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" has certainly taken on a new meaning this year for sure!

I have had to take a break from posting for a while due to the recent events that have taken place in our family. After a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving w/ our family in Ft. Smith, we returned home for only one wk. We then set out to Phoenix, AZ (Glendale actually) for approx. 9 days b/c Patrick was asked by our former Hispanic pastor's brother (Alejandro Moreno) to come speak @ his church's week-long conference...similar to a revival. Bro. Moreno (Javier-our close friend and former Hispanic mission pastor in our church in Springdale), his beautiful wife (Miriam), and their 2 super-great girls (Kenia and Thania) traveled with us all the way to AZ. Patrick spoke all last wk. (7th-13th) and did a wonderful job I think! And Bro. Moreno was MORE than a blessing to us as he was the primary translator each night as well as 3x on Sun. for Patrick's lessons/messages. We were planning on returning home a couple of days after recovering from the long yet beautiful wk. However...the Lord certainly had other plans for us.
Only a/b 1 hour away from Phoenix on our way home Tuesday, we noticed our van making a new, very strange sound. NOT good! It was especially bad since we were almost 90 miles (uphill-through the mountains) from the next big city and Flagstaff was said to still have snow on the ground from their recent snowstorms once we did arrive there. After pulling over on the side of the hwy. to lift the hood, check the oil, etc...we quickly made the decision to turn around and head back down the mountains to Phoenix to get the van checked out. Hoping and praying it was nothing too serious (esp. since we had the van all checked out/oil changed/etc. before we left Springdale), we made some calls a/b concerning our return. As the sound continued to get louder and louder and the temperature of the vehicle began to rise some, we pulled over in the closest little town we reached. We found a mechanic soon after turning off in Black Canyon City and they quickly informed us that the loud, horrible sound was b/c a rod had snapped in our engine and our "motor was shot". Lovely. They said it was pretty much just a freak thing that occurred, and that the van wasn't nearly in the condition for something like this to ever happen.
We waited in the auto repair shop/gas station parking lot for a good while (while the kids thankfully took naps in their car seats) until help arrived. We found the cheapest deal we could find to have our vehicle towed all the way back to Phoenix, and Bro. Alejandro immed. set out to come pick us all up. After unloading the crazy-full van (w/ 8 people and 8 people's luggage-2 being small kids), watching the van be towed away, and piling like a bunch of sardines into Alejandro's van...we headed back to Alejandro/Irma/Keila/Zoar's house in Glendale.
And now to avoid making a LONG story even LONGER...
Basically, the mechanic spent a couple days finding the motor he wanted for our van. And it is supposed to be finished this coming Tues. We were certainly taken back @ first by such a huge financial set-back (esp. during the holidays). However, we have truly trusted that God had a special reason for our reason through it all. Plus, we have just tried to enjoy our extra week together w/ these incredible families in Bro. Moreno's congregation. The Lord has taken care of us, but we could certainly still use your continued prayers as all 8 of us set out to head home AGAIN this coming Tues. Nothing like getting home RIGHT before Christmas! This certainly changed a lot of plans for us as well as for the Morenos and it's certainly made for an interesting situation concerning finishing our Christmas shopping this past wk., but what an awesome family to be stranded with! God has certainly grown each of us in more ways than I could even describe... And HE at least knew what the plan was, even when we did not.

Love to you all...