home...

Kinda feels like we were just here...

Over the course of the last couple weeks we have been undoing what we have spent the last 8 months doing... creating a home. All the pictures, plates and papers that we brought out to make our "temporary" place feel like home are going back in the boxes they came in. We've got piles of boxes all over the house (and in the garage) and our home is beginning to get that rental feel again.

Home... it feels a bit like a surreal idea to us. Partially, it feels like we are moving home OR at least closer to it. We are so excited to move back to Portland and have in fact (God willing) bought a house... a home. Not only closer to friends, we are also closer to Canada and family - there is a lot of excitement in our home right now. On the other hand, it feels like we are leaving what we have known for the past 8 years (the family of NieuCommunities) and trudging off into a new unknown... kind of like leaving home. There are so many things that feel unknown, unfamiliar... it is a strange tension.

This morning I was reading in Acts 2 where Peter was speaking to the crowd and he refers back to a passage from Psalm 16 that goes like this:

You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

I love the hope of this verse... the promise of REAL home. It was a powerful encouragement to a discouraged King David, the incredible motivation that got Jesus through the cross and a picture of God's best for each and every one of us. A picture that we, the McDonald clan, need right now as we walk through this next transition.

The Details:

Now that CRM has given us the "green light", we will be moving to Portland July 10th to begin working with The Berean Way (Check out their webpage if you haven't already). Jeff has just recently returned from India where he had an amazing time of connecting with Pastors there - I would encourage you to read about it here. We are so excited but in need of your prayers as we try to get everything done before our move date.

A part of what we are looking at doing with The Berean Way is the development of the discipleship base for the trips. We desire not only to go to India (and the nations) to teach, equip and duplicate, but to do it with increasing excellence, boldness and power in our local communities and churches. To allow our experiences with our couragous brothers and sisters in Christ around the world to shape us... transform us... unite us. As Paul puts it in his amazing letter to Titus, that we would be like Jesus, "...bringing [HIS] salvation for all people, training... to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." (Titus 2:11-14)

Friends... we are that people... we are His possession... it is time to be a part of awakening that zeal!

Please be praying for us as we move... especially for Duncan, Celtin, McKenzie and Hallie.

Special thanks to Peter Schrock for the photo's!