It only takes a spark to get a fire going.

The saying 'God works in mysterious ways' is more accurate than you may realize. We recognized the truth behind the statement, but perhaps we didn't understand it well enough. In any case, the last thing we expected last April was that Dad's crazy-sounding dream would come true.

Most of us were still shaking the sleep from our eyes when Dad sat down at the other end of the table. The more he tried suppressing his excitement the more we became aware that everything was not As Usual. We didn't even flinch when he said 'I have an idea', but waited expectantly for something strange. Those four words weren't new to our ears; at least he'd waited this time until Mum had her coffee. 'Let's go to Chile and help rebuild!' Just like that. There was a collective groan, a burble of laughter, and glances were exchanged. The idea was crazy, it was outrageous, and it was impossible. Where would the money come from? We didn't know the language and we didn't know anyone in Chile.  Dad really stepped over the line of sanity that morning.

Mum and Dad talked exhaustively about the subject, sometimes with us girls, sometimes without. Early this year, as many of you know, Chile was struck by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake. Dad began researching ways to build earthquake safe houses in March or April, and it was laid on his heart to help Chileans rebuild. After many discussions and more prayer, we concluded that if God was behind this idea he would open the doors that needed to be opened, and show us the way forward. For the time being our aim was to form contact with organizations that were sending teams into Chile, teams who would be willing for us to join them. On the most basic level, we were looking for direction. At the same time as people/team/organization hunting, we decided to put the house back on the market and began consolidating our property again.

Beside repainting half the house, organizing our yard and engaging with half a million other day-by-day activities, we started speaking in tongues. Latin American Spanish to be precise. Mum bought a language program from America called Rosetta Stone, which threw us headfirst into the differences between male and female endings - what the? A work friend of Madd's and mine offered to teach us all she could about the language and culture of Chile. Needless to say, we took her up on the offer as she had lived there herself. (She is now a firm family friend.) We never knew so many people who spoke Latin American Spanish until this year. It seems too coincidental to be a coincidence, if you get my meaning.
 

a recent photo of Mum and Dad.

The road we were traveling wasn't exactly straight forward, but what road is? Most of the people Dad wrote to redirected us to other people and organizations. Sometimes there would be a couple of weeks between replies and for people who are impatient this wasn't ideal! We remained directionless. Was Chile where we were needed? Or was there something else, something we were missing? Sometime in June, Dad found a promising add for a ministry position in Esperance, Western Australia. He wrote to a pastor there to see what the position required and if we could fill it. We were playing a waiting game, but the eventual answer was negative.

With regards to our house, a lady called us from off the street wanting Dad to build her a house exactly like ours. After further inquiries it became apparent that she didn't have property to build on yet, but that was alright with us. We were about to put our house on the market, so did she and her husband want to buy our place instead? Again, communications were staggered and infrequent. Every time we became desperate for information and direction God answered our prayers, more than once on the very day we prayed. He is so faithful! The couple liked our place even more after they'd inspected it, and we gained some friends to boot. To cut a long story short, we eventually settled on a price and the house was sold by late October. Another handful of prayers answered with one important addition. The couple asked us to rent back to them for a year, saving us mountains of stress finding another house, and oceans of stress moving out.

Hey, stop yawning! Whether you realize it or not three or four heavy doors had just been opened; we certainly recognized it. It was hard to miss when we had to wear sun glasses while our eyes adjusted to the light pouring in. Our house was sold, we had the money for an overseas trip, and our time wasn't burdened by a desperate need to move house.

On the last day of August one of our letters bore fruit in the form of an email written by a man named Bob. Bob was very helpful, telling us he could link us up with local Chilean Churches that were preparing to rebuild next year. There were opportunities, he said, to help and encourage the Chileans. He would do all he could to help us, though the organization he was a part of wouldn't take responsibility for our trip. We thought that was fair enough. It was a door. It was open. We were happy. The e-mail opened  a whole can of worms in the way of questions and planning as we began to realize that the Chile trip might become a reality. Bob has faithfully answered the questions, researched housing situations, created other contacts for us, encouraged us and generally paved the way in many areas.

As the house sale wasn't finalised until late October, we only had six weeks to get our passports and buy plane tickets to Canada and Chile. Tiff's passport took longer to process than anyone's, until we thought she would have to fly to Canada on a different plane. (She needs to go back to uni next year and isn't coming to Chile. Our loss, CJ's gain!) It was fine before the A380's were grounded but afterward all the planes began filling up, while prices increased as Christmas approached. Tiff's chances of making it to Canada for Christmas looked slimmer and slimmer, until we seriously doubted if it were possible. Against all odds we did manage to buy her tickets two weeks before flying. Amazingly enough, all eight of us ended up on the same planes.

At the Airport. From left to right: Madd, Georgia, CJ, Abella, Brianna, Bethany, & Tiffany. CJ stayed back and is experiencing her own adventures in Aus.

So here we are, more than halfway to our destination. We're going to Chile for three months to help rebuild two churches. Our hope is that you'll be able to experience some of what we experience through this blog. At the moment we are exhaustively pursuing the Spanish language while also mentally preparing for the coming months.

We talked to Bob on skype the other day and he informed us that he thought we were crazy when Dad's first e-mail came to him. In fact, he thought we were so crazy that he wasn't going to reply to us. We laughed at that, because we know we're crazy and he only came to a conclusion all our friends have come to as well. After thinking about it for a while Bob thought, ' You know, this is so crazy God just might be behind it', so he replied to us.

So many doors open, and we haven't even reached Chile yet.