4 Year Anniversary

I am sitting in my office and looking out of my window and what I see is so precious. Little children playing, laughing, singing and a few who are crying because let’s face it, when 35 kids are together crying will happen! One of the older boys was lifting up one of his little “brothers’ and helping him into a swing and then began to push him. This view never gets old. This life never gets old, frustrating at times, but never old.

My kids and I during one of our first hikes in December 2010.

Bryan and our kids looking over a cliff in December 2010.

December 6th marked our family’s 4th anniversary here at Beautiful Gate. It is so hard to believe that it was 4 years ago that we stepped off an airplane and were welcomed to our new home. We were so anxious. We followed God’s leading to come and now He would have to help us and lead us into our new life. We kept hearing people saying names that were too hard to remember and greeting us in a language that sounded nothing like we had ever heard before. Would we ever figure out their names?? 4 years later we know all 45 staff by name and probably 59 out of 61 kids by name. There are always one or two babies that I forget the names of.
It was never in our plans to become the directors, but God had a bigger and better plan than we could have imagined. He would raise up supports for us around the world not only to support Beautiful Gate financially, but also with an endless supply of volunteers and teams. We could not have done it for the last 3 years without that constant support and with God’s faithfulness.
We have seen children come in to BG extremely malnourished and then thriving and hitting milestones. We have seen children come in who were too sick to recover and then they were loved and cared for until they were embraced into the arms of Jesus. We have seen mothers, whose children were lost, come to Beautiful Gate and find their children and rejoice with tears of joy. We have seen so many families come to us childless and leave with a beloved child that is a perfect fit into their family. We have also seen people from all over the world come here and experience a peace that is indescribable and leave forever changed. Best of all, I have witnessed my own children learning the true meaning of love and compassion.
We have been adopted into the Beautiful Gate family and it is a beautiful family to be a part of. Our children have aunts and uncles and big brothers and sisters all over campus. They also have lots of little brothers and sisters on campus that they can play with. My only regret it that we have been too busy to really learn enough of the language so that we’d better be able to communicate with our African Family.

It is so hard to believe that we are over half way through our commitment now, with only 3 years remaining. It is hard to think about a day when we have to leave so we will not reflect on that. Many of our staff say the same thing, that they do not want to think about us leaving them so they refuse to talk about that too. God is so good and I know that He will guide us and give us His wisdom for our future. I am thankful for the last 4 years and look forward to the next 3 years. No day is ever the same and it will be an adventure for our family and for Beautiful Gate!