The End is Near...

The countdown has begun - we will be leaving India in three weeks. After 3 years of living and serving in this amazing country, our departure feels very bittersweet. We will miss our friends (even more than we realize now), we will miss the beautiful Ooty climate, we will miss the amazing students of Hebron... However, we are so looking forward to what God has next for us in Cambodia. It feels good to be simplifying once again (as you can see by my smile in the pic below), and it feels good to be making conscious decisions about how God wants us to live as a family. We are committed to serving Him and honoring Him - which makes all of life's craziness (and believe me, it's been crazy) worth it!

This week we are moving houses so that we can downsize before our "big" move. We'll be living out of suitcases and essentially "camping" in a smaller apartment so that we can send off all of our stuff in the next week or so, and can focus on "leaving well". We'll be shipping a small container to Cambodia, and the rest of our belongings will go into suitcases.

Last weekend, Lauren's dorm had a Jumble Sale (yard sale) to raise money for a service project in North India and to help feed local beggars. We donated several boxes and bags of clothes and household items - they raised almost $700! It was great to donate to such a good cause (and great not to have to deal with selling it ourselves). Unfortunately, our belongings seem to be like the widow's oil that would never run out, so we'll probably be having a sale of our own in a couple weeks. The money will go towards setting up our new home, so hopefully it will go well :)

In closing, I should probably leave you with some "Bubba" cuteness. When Addie was little, this is what she called her best friend, Jordan. And this is now what Megann calls herself. The Tamils call her "Papa" which means baby, and he Ozzies refer to all babies as "bubba". So, with all of those influences, the nickname stuck. Her sisters, of course, add their own flavor and call her "Bubba Choo Choo".