I wanted to take a blog to answer 2 of the most frequently asked questions we currently receive. When are you leaving? Are you excited or what are you excited about?

Question 1: when are you leaving? Our hope is to leave in July 2024! The house we will be staying in will be breaking ground in January, Lord willing, and it could take 3-4 months for the house to be finished. Josh and Josiah plan to take a team in and help finish the house and the security wall sometime this spring. In Burundi a lot of people have a security wall (especially foreigners), which helps keep critters and hopefully other unwanted guests out. It is a large wall around the perimeter of the house, roughly 6-7 feet tall and there is broken glass or barbed wire across the top. Here is a photo of a gecko friend on the top of a security wall and a photo of us with a security wall behind us to give you an idea of what it is like.

Besides the house being finished we are also needing to be fully funded before departing. We are about 30% funded right now and we are working on trips around the country to visit people and churches to obtain further funding. It is difficult to get into churches anymore so the most helpful thing people can do is get a small group of friends or family together to hear about what we’re doing so we can get more support that way. The more people hear the more chance of receiving needed funds we have.

So, once the house is built and once we have adequate funding, we are off to Africa!

Question 2: Are you excited/what are you excited about (or not)? Everyone is asking if we’re excited, especially the boys. Our answer overall as a family is a resounding yes. There are certainly times, especially for our boys, that they aren’t as excited, because the idea of leaving house, leaving family, leaving friends, leaving all things familiar is a bit overwhelming and the unknown for them is hard. Maybe breaking it down for each of us…

JOSH:

Josh is very excited to move to Burundi. Right after he met me I went to Burundi for 3 months. He read my blog, we e-mailed and even then God was growing a love for Burundi in Josh. He is most excited to have the opportunity to serve together as a family. He’s excited for the weather, the beauty of the country, the food, the simplicity of life they have in Burundi.

Josh is not excited about the adjustment to lack of convenience. We live in the middle of a city where we can get basically whatever we want within minutes, at least within an hour. We can click on the internet and the next day have what we want! When we get a craving for something, we go get it. It’s not a big deal, it’s just something we’re so used to here and it won’t be easy always to adjust to not having what we’ve always been able to have. Josh is also going to miss worshipping at Lifepoint. We’ve been at Lifepoint since we got home from our honeymoon, so it is our church and our family.

MICHELLE:

I am very excited to move to Burundi. I fell in love many years ago with Burundi and the people; my heart has been there since August of 2009 and I never could have dreamed the plan God had for me, not in a million years! I never wanted to go to Africa, but God broke my heart there and left pieces of my heart strewn across the country of Burundi. I know God wants my family to go and He is making the path clear for us, so I have to walk in it and will do so trusting Him each step, whether the step is joy filled or pain filled, I must obey.

I do struggle with the unknowns, absolutely. I’m taking my 3 kids across the ocean, so there is certainly a nervousness. I hate snakes, so there’s that. Puff adders and black mambas could be in my backyard…yikes! It is really difficult to live in a place where you cannot blend in. I will always stick out in Burundi, I will always hear, “muzungu” (white person) being yelled as I walk or drive by. There will be difficulties that I don’t even know, but I do know God is already there, He hasn’t left us yet, He’s not going to now or in the difficulties we’ll face in the future.

JOSIAH:

Josiah is excited to go to Burundi. He loves the weather and being outside so much. When he would be fussy as a baby I would take him on the porch outside and he’d stop crying, if I brought him back inside, he’d cry. He is excited about the adventure, he enjoys travel and new things and is very excited to be together as a family more.

Josiah is not looking forward to saying goodbye to friends, family and our dog.

SAMUEL:

Sam is usually excited. Sam is our wholehearted, passionate boy. He loves with every ounce in him and loves right where he’s at and yet is always anxious for the next exciting thing life has to bring. Sam loves the pop in Burundi and is honestly most excited to be able to drink pop so much. Our pop in America is so different, and we just don’t drink it hardly ever as a family, but in Burundi we all love a pop called Fanta Citron and the juice there is fresh juices, so Sam is most excited about the drinks. Truly, I wish it were deeper than that, but it isn’t, he’s 8 and he’s most excited about pop.

Sam is not excited about saying goodbye to our dog, his friends or family. Sam will probably be the one that struggles the most with leaving the familiar, but he is also the one that will probably adjust to the unfamiliar becoming familiar quickest.

NEIL:

Neil is excited to go to Africa. He is a very popular boy in Burundi, they do not see white people much at all and to see a little white boy is just fun for them. They love watching him and giving him fist bumps. In his 5 year old mind all these strangers are his friends, so if you ask him he says he’s most excited to see all his friends again.

Neil is not excited to leave our dog. He’s 5 so the idea of leaving and moving is a vague concept until it happens and reality will have joys and difficulties I’m sure. For some reason he fully understands we will be leaving the dog here and that does not sit well. We tell him when we return back to the states we can get another dog and he proceeds to tell us all the kinds of dogs he wants.