The Pearl.

Well, I realize that I’ve not been around here much lately.  God’s been busy around the Popp house creating some waves that are beginning to look a little more like a tsunami.  To us anyway.  To God it probably looks like we’re splashing in puddles.

 

Do you remember this post?  I talked about how I knew in my heart that God was preparing us for something, but that I had no idea what it was.  I knew the wind was picking up, but I had no idea where this tsunami was going to come from.

 

Well, God was faithful in revealing the pearl he has for us.  As if I should be surprised.  Looking back on that post, it is still a mystery to me how God works.  How he put a desire, a longing, a burden on my heart to prepare me for what he would ask of us.  (This post leaves me in awe of His planning as well.  And this one just seems a little ironic at this point.)

 

God has presented Brian and I with an opportunity to take our family to Tanzania.  To live.  There.  In Tanzania.  As in,

 

We would be serving as administrators for an orphanage there called Samaritan Village in Arusha.  We’d also be working as communication between the board of directors here, and the board of directors there.  (This requires learning Swahili.  No big deal, right?)  There is such a huge need for this there.  The orphan crisis is doing nothing but growing, and if these babies don’t have somewhere to go, then quite simply, they just die.

The organization is also working on building a second orphanage about an hour away that we would help with as well.  All of the other people who work at the orphanage are locals, but there are a few other Americans in Arusha serving as missionaries in different ways. 

 

So yeah.  It’s looking really, very possible that we will be moving to Africa.  We’d likely go sometime in late summer of next year.  Between now and then we would have to sell our house, sell our cars, have a baby, raise financial support for our time there, put all our stuff in storage, and move.

 

This isn’t something that we pursued, which is one of the reasons it is so evident to us that God is orchestrating all of this.  We were surprised.  He is not.

I’m going to try to put into words how this all came about – but it will take some time, so all  that for another post.  I’ll also try to share more about the orphan crisis and the need there, and about why in the world we would move our family to the other side of the world. 

So far this has been one of the most blessed, scary, awe inspiring, humbling, and challenging experiences we have faced – and it’s certain to not get any less so in the coming months!

 

So there you have it.  When God is preparing you for something, hold on, cause he might just send you to Africa.