8 Years Later

We sat in a coffee shop with cars whizzing outside the windows in the bustling city of Istanbul. I was currently living there and Chad was visiting the city. We chatted about life, the Lord, and being expats. We asked questions. I tried to impress him with my limited Turkish while ordering a latte. At the end, he bought a coffee mug and we went in our different directions to separate continents.

Eight years later, that coffee mug would end up in our kitchen. I would sit and look at it and remember that day and all the days that we would happen to be in the same city and catch up. Our house actually ended up with mugs from all over the world. A visible reminder to me of God’s faithful fulness and of our love for travel and all nations.

As I wrapped this mug up to sit in a box in storage for awhile, I am reminded that we never know what God will do 8 years later. 8 years after we met, we got married. We would spend the next 8 years together serving as a pastor in a local church in Missouri and Baltimore while expanding our family. Now as a family of four, we have sold most of what we own, packed up our suitecases and are heading back across the ocean to live. We are still serving a church, but now we will live as a family of four as expats. So, let us raise our coffee mugs to the next eight years-to all the friends we will meet over a cup of coffee-to all the joys and unknowns. As we look back past these last eight years and forward to the next, we are grateful to a faithful God we can trust with them all.