What’s Next

For the next 6–12 months, our plan is fairly simple: settle down, readjust to life in the United States, and prayerfully consider where the Lord would have our family call home next.

Katie continues to serve as Chair of the Beautifully Flawed Foundation and is preparing to begin another year of homeschooling. Michael is focusing on the work God has blessed him with, which allows him to work remotely from home and be present with our family during this season.

While our season as foreign missionaries in Cambodia is over, our desire to serve the Lord certainly is not. We expect that service will look different in the seasons ahead, and we want to remain available to follow wherever and however He leads.

We don't know exactly what the next chapter will look like, but we are thankful that we don't have to. We are grateful for the Lord's provision and leading, and we trust Him with what comes next.

Most of all, thank you for faithfully standing with our family. Your partnership allowed us to serve in Cambodia, and we will always be grateful for the role you played in that chapter of our lives.

Cambodia - how my heart ached when I left you. We love and miss our friends and neighbors, the church, and our kids' schoolmates.

We left Cambodia and arrived back here in the US just over a month ago. We left abruptly under the strangest circumstances I’ve ever experienced. I thank God because He warned Michael in a dream several weeks before our abrupt departure. The dream was so unreal though - we both brushed it off as a devastating nightmare that would never come to pass. I guess we were wrong on that account.

Just moments before the very strange news that led to our departure came to us, the Lord reminded me of a quote from my friend, Carley Shoes — “Every set back, is really a set UP for something greater God has for your life.”

“Every set back, is really a set UP for something greater God has for your life.”

As those words rang and repeated through my mind for a couple minutes, I was simultaneously comforted and concerned: Like, “ok… what set back? What is going to happen?”

The Lord didn’t have me wait long before He revealed the “set back.” I’m thankful that He allowed me to know this was also a set UP for something greater. Because we cried a lot, for the next 7 days — as we prayed and decided as a family to leave swiftly. We gave away almost everything we owned in Cambodia. We moved there with 27 pieces of luggage and then bought an entire household of furniture and beds and kitchen things and dining room things and homeschool things, and outdoor things, etc. And we left with 18 pieces of luggage.

We were able to give almost everything we owned to some Khmer friends who do ministry, people from our church there, and our neighbors and landlord. That was the highlight of those painful days: giving away all the things. The pain came right along with the delight: we had a pastor and women weeping at our house, crying because we were leaving too soon, friends who didn’t understand and we couldn’t really explain, neighbors who were surprised and sad to say goodbye to us. It just felt awful. My kids were crying over all the ministry they would now not get to do — as they had just built out a plan for a Bible program for the neighbor/village kids in our area. Michael and I were also crying for all ministry we wouldn’t be able to do, our hearts were so broken - having thrown our lives all in on being in Cambodia, working on language, spending all the money we had to move there, investing our hearts and networks and resources — only to have our investment cut short.

I was also feeling the pain of so many people all at once - my own pain, the pain that was in Michael’s heart that he couldn’t pay attention to because he had to make decisions and move seven of us across the globe, the loss and pain my children’s were experiencing, the pain of those in the church, the pain of my friends and my children’s friends, the pain of those who had been confused by the enemy to not want us there anymore, the pain of my neighbors and landlord who were really upset at our departure. The heaviness of all that pain hit me really hard - and I don’t know that I can explain how intense it was. I just grieved and mourned and cried and prayed as I packed and gave away the things and cleared out the house and we bought the plane tickets and made all the plans: Leaving, once again, and going to, “a place that I will show you.” My goodness. So many times God has directed us to do this. This pain was really severe though - it felt different in so many ways.

But all the while, in the back of my mind remained the words - “it’s really a set UP for something greater God has for your life.”

I pray that what we left behind in Cambodia, the people we connected with, the time and love invested, learning Khmer and fumbling through it as we met and talked with people in the village, all the scripture Michael taught through, the outreaches, the conversations we had, the gifts we gave, the meals we shared — I pray that they only increase from our departure, that they have a GREATER work now that we are gone, an exponential impact that we will not see and cannot comprehend.

“Some of us plant, some of us water… some of us water very briefly before our time is cut short — but no matter what, CHRIST GIVES THE INCREASE.”

You see, that doesn’t make sense to me, but I can pray - because God makes beauty out of ashes, He does the impossible, and He is the one that always gives the increase! Some of us plant, some of us water… some of us water very briefly before our time is cut short — but no matter what, CHRIST GIVES THE INCREASE.
What we do WITH HIM far exceeds our ability and our comprehension.

Does my heart still ache a little? Yes. But God gives His children incredible and incomprehensible peace. And with God, there is always HOPE. So I look at what is new for today, and I ponder here and there about what is next, and I know with increasing certainty that it is good because He is good, He only gives good gifts to His children, and He EVER writes resurrection stories in the lives of those who look to Him.