I was sitting at my desk, on a call with a friend, and she asked, “Where have you been?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant… South Africa? Working? Homeschooling my girls?

She said, “Well, another friend at church was asking about you because we don’t see you online much anymore. We see brief updates but not the inside look and fun posts that we’re used to seeing. She just wanted to know if you were ok.”

It’s hard to explain how hard being in missions and being online is sometimes. The longer we’re in missions, the longer we’re on this incredibly, amazingly hard journey, the harder it gets to explain.

I could keep telling you about how our house leaks, the ants are everywhere, about the language funnies and cultural misunderstandings, the weird feeling of driving on the opposite side of the road from the opposite side of the car… passport adventures, paperwork, currencies… that’s all still happening. All the things I write about are still there.

But, maybe that’s it. It’s daily now. It’s not new anymore.

It’s our life.

A life that is taking me on a deeper personal journey than I ever anticipated.

Continue reading Finding the Courage to Ask for Help at Our Goodwin Journey.

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Last year, I took some time to gather the posts that I’d written through the year and put them in one place.

It’s amazing how much of a journey, a story is told through listing one writing after another, seeing God at work in the different months and moments of a year.

As I sit here now, I find myself in a new country, new season of ministry, new time of parenting and a new journey of growth with Jesus.

A place I didn’t know I’d be yet a place that I know God has directed, planned and designed for such a time as this.

Isn’t life with Jesus that way sometimes?

Looking back at 2021, I can see Him at work.

Each post tells part of the story, part of the adventure we’re on in this crazy, emotional, transitional, overseas life.

In January, the world was still so full of unknowns. We all held our breath to see what another year of a pandemic might look like. We wondered and hoped and waited and prayed. A little bit like Noah sitting on the ark in the middle of a flood.

Continue reading A Look Back Through 2021 at Our Goodwin Journey.

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It must have been a verse that was used in our overseas training or in a long ago chapel service as we prepared to begin our overseas career.

I don’t remember the speaker or the moment I first heard this version of it.

I’m not sure who I was sitting with or what I wore or the time of day.

But I’d posted this verse as my facebook status many years ago. I can imagine my pre-missions self hearing it, typing it and hitting post while the message continued around me.

As I recently drank my coffee in the early morning hours, scrolling through facebook memories, seeing an old, forgotten status update, the verse I’d posted stood out to me in a deep, full, gut-wrenching way.

“I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” 1 Corinthians 9:23 The Message

Whenever it was that I first heard this verse, I know what I heard in the phrase all this because.

I heard language struggles and bugs in the house and hot days in the sand and packing our belongings to go and saying goodbye to family.

Continue reading All This Because at Our Goodwin Journey.

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As we search for things to remember in the unknown, there may not be a more iconic Bible story than Noah’s Ark. This story brings cute, animal-filled arks that decorate nurseries in churches and homes alike. The sweet tiny animals can be found in toy isles, children’s books and coloring pages.

We might think the detailed account of Noah’s life is better left for kids church or bedtime stories because we, as adults, already know it so well. We know it forwards and backwards, breezing through the words and often forgetting the many lessons to be learned.

Will you jump back into the story with me anyway?

Let’s go to Genesis 6-9. Having found favor with God, Noah was given the challenging task of building an ark that was very specific in size. He was to gather food, supplies, his family and many animals. He didn’t know how long it would take to build this massive boat or even how long they would live inside it, yet he obeyed God.

The rains came. The great deep burst forth and the windows of heaven were opened.

For 40 days the water increased. 

Continue reading 5 Things to Remember in the Unknown at Our Goodwin Journey.

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If someone had sat me down in January 2020 and told me what the year would hold, I would not have believed them.

It would have seemed so incredibly out there that I would have laughed and wondered what bad pizza they ate the night before.

A worldwide pandemic?

Closed borders?

Frantic embassy emails warning us to go home now?

Stay-at-home orders?

Curfews and quarantines and masks and online school and zoom meetings and shortage of toilet paper?

Looking back at the unrest, the political scene, the intense conversations, the deep loss, unbelievable grief of missed opportunities, canceled events, failed travels and interrupted dreams, it’s still difficult to imagine a year quite like the one we’ve all endured.

Although not here on this blog, I actually did quite a bit of writing and processing this year. Through themes on other platforms, I was able to think through and write out the lessons God has been working in me. I’ve been able to express the ways He’s been teaching and developing my heart.

As I looked back over the posts from this year, I can see these lessons and the flow of how God patiently works in us while lovingly encouraging us to keep going, to keep pushing, to keep resting, to keep trusting and to keep sharing.

Continue reading A Look Back at Lessons from 2020 at Our Goodwin Journey.

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