Thank you...and I have a special prayer request.

First of all "THANKS!!!" everyone for the sweet words and comments left on my last post. I survived the 13th birthday and the party. I am pretty proud of my baby girl, so to hear all the compliments made my day extra special. Thanks friends!!! Although, I have to admit she had trouble with the part when everyone she came into contact with said she looked like me...but my feelings were not hurt. What 13 year old wants to look like their mom, anyway. Unless of course you were the daughter of Heidi Klum...

I also have a special prayer request...

My hubby grew up with a very sweet girl and her dear sister. They spent a lot of time together in youth group as teenagers, never knowing that all three of them would end up in the ministry somehow. Kevin became a minister, one married a minister and the other one has surrender to God's calling to the mission field.

I have had the pleasure through the years to get to know these dear friends of Kevin's.I keep up with what they and their families are doing, all of us praying for each other and our different ministries. Well, tomorrow is a hard day for their family, for the one sister and her precious family will board an airplane for unknown territory. I am not going to tell names or their destination, for now, but I am asking for prayer.

Maybe because I grew up on the mission field, I have an idea of what may lie ahead...great fun and adventure, as well as loneliness and lots of homesickness. This will not be easy for them, but I believe they will have great joy from knowing they are following God's calling for their lives.

I received an email from them today, with suggestions on how I could pray for them in the upcoming days. I thought I would share "pieces" of that email.

"Pray as we continue to say our goodbyes to family...we ask for prayer for the kids especially. They, too, know the calling, but today has been a really, really tough for them as they told aunts, uncles and cousins goodbye...

Please pray that the we will stay connected as a family...physically, emotionally and spiritually.

As we land, we are asking you to pray that our hearts would break even more for the people our Father has called us to reach.

Pray that daily, we will grow deeper in our faith... that often our knees will be bent and our hands will be raised. Pray also that as we begin walking on foreign soil in a few days, our faith will remain in the Father and not on our circumstances.

Pray for unity in our marriage as well as in our relationships with our children.

Pray for quick learning of the language so we can begin building relationships with our new friends.

Thank you, as always for speaking our names to the Father. We do not want to sensationalize our feelings on what is happening, but simply, our dream is coming true. It has been an incredible journey thus far, and it is truly surreal that the time has now come to go. You are each a part of the journey, some having been on board since the beginning... You have seen the ways He has worked to accomplish His will...not for us, but as Isiah 40 says, ' so that all mankind will see it.' We have said this before, but you cannot know the comfort that our family feels in knowing that as we go to bed each night, our friends "back home" will soon be getting up and speaking our names to the Father..."

Please pray for this dear family, that I have come to love and admire. And in honor of their family and the sacrifices they are making right now, pray that the Father will show you, your own little mission field.