Family
I was thinking the other day about how blessed we are with our family. When you start something like All Things New, it is extremely important to have a support system behind you and that support system should start with your family. We have been blessed to have some wonderful churches support us, incredible sponsors get behind us, and friends and even strangers catch the vision that GOD has given us. But I want to write this post today to let you know how wonderful our families have been.
Most importantly is our parents. Both of our parents sponsor multiple children, lead trips to Haiti, and just in general support us in amazing ways. My (Matt) parents knew a year before we made the decision that we would be moving to Haiti. Jessica’s parents do our bookkeeping and have been to Haiti on multiple occasions to help us and to support us. But the most important thing they offer is prayer and support. We are both so blessed to have parents who would do anything for us, and it has made this transition so much better.
The next level of family is our brother and sisters. I have 2 sisters and Jessica has a brother and all of them are sponsors of our children. They have supported us financially, by coming on trips, by leading a trip coming up soon, by praying for us, and really by doing whatever we have asked them to do and more. They have seen the vision that GOD has given us and they have gotten behind us 100%.
The next level is our aunts, uncles and cousins. Every single one of our aunts and uncles have supported us in one or another, and each of our 1st cousins have supported us as well. They constantly ask us about how things are going, they support us financially, they cook hams for us when we come home (this one is very specific), and in general they are completely behind us.
I could go on and on because we have other cousins and other more distant family members who support us, but I write this for 2 reasons really. The first reason is to let our families know how thankful we are for them and how important our relationships to them are. Our families will never truly know how important they have been to All Things New and it has made it that much easier and better for us just knowing they will always help us.
The other and most important reason is to point out the faithfulness of our GOD. He knew that we could not do this on our own and that we needed a group of people to always be there to help us. The main reason for this post is to glorify GOD for the blessing He has given us in our family. He prepares us for what He wants us to do, and one of the greatest ways He has prepared Jessica and I for this work is by giving us our families. I was thinking about this the other night while I was doing my quiet time and it struck me that sometimes we overlook our biggest blessings because they are just always there. I hope that GOD will always remind us that the great things we have on this earth all from Him and that we need to thank Him and glorify Him for those blessings every day.