Timeline.

It's true and absolutely needless to say: I'm terrible at keeping up with this blog. So, the long-short of the story is this: We had our final interview with the IMB on January 10. Our IMB advisor came to church and we met for 2 1/2 hours right in Chandler's office. Hands down, the most unique and invasive interview I have ever been a part of; our advisor asked us a whole range of questions concerning the autobiographies Chandler and I wrote back in October.

Fortunately, he concluded that we are not too terribly screwed up and gave us the verbal assurance that we should have no problem getting through the Board of Trustees in March. Once that is final, we are appointed as IMB missionaries in May, we leave for Virginia in late July for a two month IMB orientation, and leave for Africa in early October.

Oh, and we've been "job matched" to Ft. Dauphin, Madagascar with the Antandroy people. We have also made contact with our team; a young family from Texas. And we love them already. They landed in Madagascar in October of 2011, so they are exactly a year ahead of us in this process. Since October and until July 2012, they are in language school in Antsirabe. In July they will move to another place with our team leader and his family, then when we get through language school in July 2013, our team family will move with us to Ft. Dauphin. Complicated? Yes. Awesome? Yes!

Maybe what is not so awesome is all of the packing and preparing we are doing now. We are getting ready to put our town house "on the market", so Chandler and I have spent the past couple of weekends cleaning out closets and our catch all room, the office. As we communicate with our team family, they graciously offer their advice and wisdom: What to crate, what to leave behind, what to stock up on. They will never know how grateful we are for them, already. We cannot wait to meet them in person and do ministry alongside them.

There is always a silver lining: Our office has never been so... CLEAN as it is right now and we still have a little work to do! Who knew that room was so BIG! :)

How can you pray? Please pray that our town house sells quickly, even if it means we have to bunk up somewhere for a few months. Pray for us as we prepare ourselves emotionally and make decisions regarding...well, everything. We have absolutely no doubt that we are right in God's will, but pray that we will not get distracted; that we won't lose focus of our ministry to our students.