God
bless you this Christmas season as we look forward to celebrating the
birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We can’t express how
thankful we are to receive your prayer support, financial support,
and words of encouragement.
During
the last 4 years, since being accepted as OMS Missionaries, we have
experienced a lot of wonderful, exciting, new, and rewarding things.
We have also experienced some challenges, difficulties and
disappointments.
We
realize that in our monthly updates and on our blog, we share the
positive things, and haven’t really touched on the struggles we
have faced. It’s hard to know how open and
transparent we should be, especially from a distance and through
electronic devices. So please forgive us for falling short in
that regard. We want to share some of that now.
Many
of you know of our desire to start a family and that we have been
trying for over 11 years. Many of us have been praying for this for a
long time; however, the
Lord has not allowed that to happen. Hannah has endometriosis,
which makes it difficult, though not impossible, to conceive. But
we continue to have faith, knowing that all things are possible with
Him.
Because
of our longing for a baby, we have been through a lot in the last
couple of years. Even though, up until we left for language school in
Costa Rica, we hadn’t been able to start a family, we had a strong
belief that it would happen there. And when it did not happen
in Costa Rica, we really
felt that it would happen in Ecuador.
Not
too long after arriving in Ecuador to serve at the Guesthouse, we
were referred to a fertility specialist in Quito. For about 8
months, we had regular appointments at his office and went through
four fertility treatments. Each failed treatment was so
difficult to accept and deal with, especially without our family, and
especially with the Guesthouse full of visitors that we needed to
serve. We were providing support to many people through the
ministry, but we realize that we needed additional encouragement and
support ourselves through this difficult time in our lives.
Words
can’t express the extreme hope we had before each treatment and the
extreme despair after each one was unsuccessful.
Words also cannot express the peace of God that we experienced.
Philippians 4:7 says “... the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”.
These aren’t just words on a page for us, they are our
reality.
We
have always had adoption somewhere in our minds as a possibility. We
never said, “No, that’s not something we would ever want to do”,
but we also never had the attitude of, “Let’s adopt right now!”
Things have changed for us. It appears that our best
possibility
of having a family is through adoption, which has made our desire to
adopt much stronger. We also have a sense of joy and purpose to
be the ones to give a baby a home and a future. We’re seeing
this as not just about us and what we want, but something great for a
baby.
Last
month, we went to a government adoption office in Portoviejo, about
45 minutes from Manta. We were able to sit down with someone
from the office and talk for a few minutes. We found out that
in order to even begin the adoption process in Ecuador, we have to
live here for 3 consecutive years. Steve qualifies, but Hannah
doesn’t qualify. We would have to wait over a year to even begin
the process. Also, it is not that common to be able to adopt a
newborn, which is our desire. We were told that it is more
common to adopt older children and adolescents.
Going
through all of this has been very difficult since we are away from
our family, our church body, and our friends. Just being away
from that support is challenging enough, but adding the elements of a
different culture and a different language makes it even more so.
The reality of our OMS Ecuador team is that we are spread out
over the country - so it has been difficult to have close connection
with our OMS family on the Ecuador field.
We
had hopes that the move from Quito to Manta and a change in ministry
assignment would be a positive change for both of us. In our
recent letter regarding our change of ministry, we spoke of our
desire to be involved in a different ministry than the Guesthouse.
We felt so fulfilled when we went on the short-term trip to the
jungle and the many trips to help in Manta with earthquake relief.
We were both excited for this move and really felt the door had
opened for us to come to Manta. However, we continue to
experience many of the same struggles that we experienced in Quito at
the Guesthouse.
So,
with the combination of several factors - the reality that the OMS
Ecuador team is spread out and field support isn’t “right around
the corner”, along with living in a different culture with a
different language, the unsuccessful fertility treatments, our desire
for a baby, our desire to adopt, and the impact of our age on the
adoption approval process - the Lord is leading us back to Fort
Wayne, IN to pursue adoption. We will be traveling back to the
States in mid-December, just a few weeks away. We still have a
strong desire to serve in Ecuador, but we will see how the Lord
leads.
We
will remain as OMS Missionaries. Given the circumstances of needing
to be home in the US in order to adopt and the age factor in
adopting, OMS has granted us an early furlough, which is also known
as “Home Ministry Assignment” (HMA). All OMS missionaries
go on an HMA about every two to four years to refresh, renew and
reconnect with their families, friends, home churches and other
supporters. We look forward to physically being able to get together
and share with you about our experiences in Ecuador and we look
forward to beginning the process of adoption and what that looks like
for us. During our HMA, OMS is also helping us explore possible
next ministry assignments.
This
was an unexpected path; however, we have no doubt that it is the one
in which the
Lord is leading. We still have a strong desire to serve in Ecuador,
and we must be obedient to the path that the Lord has laid before us.
This decision has not come quickly or easily. In all of our
steps and decisions along the way, we have prayed diligently and have
sought counsel from many people. In this decision to come back
to the US at this time, we have spoken to Christian counselors, our
parents, our Field Leader, our OMS Ecuador Team, and the HR office at
headquarters, and we have the full
support of everyone. And we hope we can have your support too.
We
know we just moved to Manta a couple months ago. The plan for us was
to help with the reconstruction and to organize and lead teams. We
know the plan was to help the Manta church with evangelism and other
ministries. People gave very generously to help us with the
move. Believe us, those things made this decision extremely difficult
to make. But for the factors mentioned above, we cannot focus
and effectively do the ministry here at this time. Our Field
Leader has assured us that the plan for work in Manta will continue.
Even before we moved here, there were new OMS missionaries
preparing to come, and they will be here at some point in the future.
We
will leave many of our belongings in Ecuador so that,
in the event that we do return, they will be waiting for us. We
will also sell some things,
and
any money that is made from a sale will go right back into our
support account for us to use again in the future.
Over
the past few weeks we’ve asked ourselves many, many times,
“How can we leave?” We just moved to Manta. People
are counting on us. We don’t want to let anyone down. We
want to help with the new ministry in Manta. We like it here.
And just as many times we’ve asked, “How can we stay?”
The desire for a baby is affecting all other areas of our lives. We
can’t carry out this ministry with our hearts somewhere else.
Hannah
has prayed that the Lord relieve her of her strong desire for
children, yet the desire has only grown. This has been a primary
factor in our decision to return home at this time and to seek
adoption. Our priority must be seeking the Lord, our family, and then
our work. This is difficult for missionaries, who often confuse their
work with putting the Lord first. We believe that coming home
for now, is honoring God.
Please
continue to pray for us as we make this quick transition back to the
United States for Home Ministry Assignment and as we pursue adoption.
We are also grateful for your ongoing financial support as we
work through this transition and seek the Lord’s direction for next
steps. We will continue to keep you updated.
God bless you,
Steve and Hannah
