30 Presentations Later... What We're Learning

It's hard to believe--Monday was our 30TH time presenting to a group about our future ventures with MAF. Wow! Time flies! What have we learned over the past few months?

1. Never trust technology (especially technology in churches). Always bring both laptops, all cords, and a USB to every presentation. Oh ... and like a million different versions of your presentation ...
2. After about 25 presentations, some of Marcel's jokes STILL make me laugh ... even though I know they're coming! I'm learning just how funny and amazing my husband can be!
3. We are always surprised by the massive outpouring of love, encouragement, and enthusiasm people have after we talk! Honestly, we have learned that people can be incredibly giving and loving.
4. We are always learning something about ourselves. Seriously, when we say our testimony over and over again, we start to notice some of the tiny, miraculous ways God has worked in the past to prepare us for the future. We notice seemingly "coincidental" happenings (like Marcel visiting an MAF base in Haiti, or meeting our awesome friend Joel Knapp at Urbana missions conference) that forever changed our lives. We see the ways God has prepared us from a young age for the mission field. We see how God used things like 4-H, homeschool, supply teaching, and airports. We reflect on some of the people who have forever changed our lives. We rejoice in the things we sometimes had to learn the hard way, or some of the values our parents instilled in us--even if we didn't like it at the time. 
5. We've learned to work together. This might be the most valuable thing we've learned ... and are still learning! It's not easy working with your spouse day in and day out, but we've learned a few things. We've learned to find our outlets--hockey, fitness, fixing airplanes, supply teaching. We've learned that Marcel's strengths tend to be my weaknesses, and vice-versa. We balance each other out fairly well. We've learned to trust each other (definitely easier said than done) and to learn from our mistakes. And through it all ... we've learned to pray.

So, although that's not an exhaustive list of what we've learned, that pretty much sums up some of the important things. Working for MAF has already been an amazing experience ... and we're not even overseas yet! Happy weekend, enjoy the weather!

Working together ... it's like riding a tandem bicycle. Throwback to 2010 when we were still dating!