it is official - we are moving to thailand in january. that means lots to do and not much time, but i'm confident it will happen. at least something will happen.

i told the kids last night. i would have liked to have waited until bh was home, but so many other people know and i want them to hear it from us. it was hard. they were sad, confused, angry. probably all the same emotions i would be feeling if i hadn't learned some coping mechanisms, the good kind and the bad. plus, we had a bit of a practice move. we moved from texas to colorado. i know that's nowhere near the same thing as moving to a new country, but it was a bit of a teensy-weensy baby step. we moved away from family and friends. we made new friends. we learned that some relationships could be maintained from a distance and that others couldn't. and i don't have to be told that the cultural differences, the changes to our every day lives were really minimal - especially when compared to what lies ahead. when we made this move our kids were smaller, tb was the most effected - he had to leave his best friend and it was hard. the other two, lb & ff, well they just didn't have those kind of connections, yet. now, they all do. and i'm having difficulty comforting them with any kind of confidence - and because they are kids, they intuitively just know that. they seem to think i'll have all the answers to their questions. they ask, "how often will we get to see our friends here?" i answer, "i don't know." they ask, "where will we live there?" i answer, "i don't know." they ask, "will people come visit us?" and while i probably do know the answer to that one - i still answer, "i don't know." how scary that must be for them, making it all the more difficult to process. the person who should know, the expert in their lives, seems to have absolutely no idea of anything. and it's frustrating for me. because i just want to find the instruction book. the one that has the step by step descriptions of what needs to get done and just how to do it.

i think to many people this seems just so half-baked. we must be off our rocker to pick up our family and move literally 1/2 way around the world. i think there was a part of me that took comfort in the fact that it was still 7 months out - anything can happen in 7 months. don't get me wrong, i was completely committed to moving come july, just that it's alot of time; things change. but now, 7 weeks out, we really do have to start making progress. figuring out how all of this works. getting stuff done.

but underlying all of this - the confusion, the complete and utter sense of inadequacy, the at times overwhelming sadness at what we're leaving behind - there really is a peace. i have absolutely no doubt that this is what we are supposed to be doing. that this is where God wants us. He doesn't always ask us to do easy things and i have a choice to make. i can go through this whole experience kicking and screaming and possibly miss some (or maybe all) of the blessings He has for me. or i can participate, i can say let's do this thing - let's pack up and go 1/2 way around the world - let's see what God has planned. because i believe we can choose to participate in God's plan or not. either way, it's going to happen and when it's all done we can either say, "look what God did in spite of me" or "look what God allowed me to participate in."