We are in France!!

We are finally expats! Things were a little touch and go there for a bit back in the spring/summer regarding when we would actually leave and where we would be going, but here we are in France about to start language school in less than a week!

                                         

(Our living room/dining room with a beautiful view! We are very close to the Orly airport so Amelia has constant entertainment watching the planes coming and going!) 

We arrived at 6:00 am. Michael had arranged a van for us to be transported from the airport to our school/apartment. So glad he did! 10 bags and 4 people would have been a sight on public transportation!  We arrived and showered and took a nice nap – all four of us! – and then walked about a quarter of a mile to our school to introduce ourselves. We met a few other families who are also attending Le Cedres. We got some tips from a few people who have been here a while and walked another 0.5 miles to the grocery store, Cora. It’s like French Walmart…maybe even bigger.  A guy who we just met at the school literally came to find us in the store to bring us a grocery cart (like the ones you can walk home with from the market) and told us he has a car and was free to wait for us/help us in the store until we finished so he could drive us back with all of our “set up” groceries!!! What a kind/generous/thoughtful thing! So fun to see how God looks out for us and takes care of us even in the little details of life!  Also, the girls were getting fussy so I ended up just walking back with them and Michael and our new friend stayed and did all the grocery shopping!

Thankfully, Michael speaks un petit Francais, however there were a few little hiccups on our grocery trip. Example one – we wanted creamer for our coffee and ended up buying some sort of thick cream that you would put, say, I don’t know, on your fruit or something like the picture shows on the front cover (hand on forehead).  Good news though! It still tastes great in coffee!!!

Girls slept ok last night, up multiple times but well overall considering.  Grateful we have a week to adjust before school starts for everyone!  

The weather was beautiful yesterday, in the 70s. Today its cooler but raining. Good thing we brought the rain cover for the stroller! 

That's it for now -- here are a few pictures below.  Hopefully can update again next week after we start school!

 Amelia eating a cracker in our new kitchen!

  Our Kitchen! The clothes washer is in here!

The girls' room.  All very nice (seems like new!) furniture!

Eating some eggs for lunch before we go register Amelia for school.

Au revoir!

Aren't you supposed to be in Cameroon?

No fancy blog post this time, just an update.  See our most recent newsletters (archived on a separate page on our blog site -- click on the menu (three white bars) and then drag the page down to find the "PRAYER LETTERS" link) for all the deets.

Yesterday came and went and we did not board the plane to travel to Cameroon.  Still saddened by all of the unrest going on in Cameroon and for the unclear path, we are excited to move forward and see what God has planned. Currently our plan is to attend school for a year in Massy, France to learn French!  (I say currently because we had been planning to move to Cameroon for over a year...things are always changing and we are learning to be flexible!).  We are praying that things settle down in Cameroon after a year of language school and that we will be able to move there in the fall of 2019.

Saying Goodbye

You know how you feel when you see someone in the grocery store, have a conversation, then say your goodbyes....then see them 15 more awkward times in the store.  That's how I currently feel!! We've been SO HONORED to have so many wonderful friends throw us goodbye parties.  The funny thing is that we knew we will see a lot of those people at those parties at least one more time due to the fact that our departure date was pushed back (but YAY we now have a departure date of May 28!) Despite sometimes having those awkward interactions, I am so glad we've had the opportunity to have some closure with the goodbye get togethers  (because "goodbye party" just sounds funny to me!).

These first pictures are from the farewell lunch thrown by my amazing colleagues at Children's Clinic!  I was blown away!!  And as if one party wasn't good enough, they even threw me a super thoughtful goodbye lunch at the Greer office!! Seriously, I was just overwhelmed by all the sweet goodbyes.  Going to miss you guys a TON!

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These next pictures are from a going away party thrown by our previous and current community groups and included many friends from our time in Greenville! Thank you Laurie and Silvia for hosting/organizing/planning! You are the best!! 

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Below are a few pictures from the get together hosted by Beth and David Jacobs for a lot of our friends from GHS residency...they put together a photo booth and printing station and MADE us a photo book at the party! So thoughtful! :) 

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And last but not least, the farewell get together thrown by my amazing friends from Atlanta. These are some of my oldest and dearest friends.  Thank you for all of your years of friendship! Love you all. 

Creating this blog post has been so humbling. We have such wonderful friends and family and without your love and support we would not be where we are today -- headed to Africa!

Goodbyes are not easy, and we want them to be sincere. So while we are so excited about our new life in Cameroon, a sense of sadness laces every interaction we have in these last few months here.  Please know that even if our faces or words do not express our sadness about leaving, we are very much going to miss those who we are leaving behind.

When it snows it blizzards...

As many of you know the holiday season was interesting in the Harling household.  Fair warning, this post is long.  Here's the short version:  There are a lot of risks in life both seen and unseen; God is always in control and is always good.

Here it goes....

THANKSGIVING!

Jenn missed the memo on our color scheme :)

We had a chance to spend Thanksgiving with Jenn's parents and really enjoyed our time in Atlanta.  There was an unexpected extension of our time there when Jenn herniated a lumbar disc the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Fortunately we have many connections in the area through her and her family.  The now chair of PAACS, Dr. Doug Lundy, who happens to be an orthopedic surgeon also happens to practice at a hospital close to the Brostrand house.  After an MRI, short hospital stay, and an injection of steroids into her spine, Jenn was up and walking again.

I was so grateful to have loving (and flexible!) in-laws who took care of Amelia and Madelyn so I could spend time with Jenn at the hospital.  Being away from the girls was hard for Jenn, and she was so excited to return home and hold them again!

    Any of you who have had back problems know the recovery process can be slow going, but Jenn continued to improve. A visit with a spine surgeon here in Greenville reassured us that non-operative management was the way to go.  Amelia was quick to understand Jenn's limitations and kept asking if "mama's boo-boo all better?"  She has since celebrated with us "mama's boo-boo is all better now!"  As of January, Jenn has officially graduated outpatient PT and is now just doing exercises at home.


On the way home from a doctors appointment at the beginning of December Madelyn and I were in a car accident which resulted in this  --> It happened about 500 yards away from home.  By God's grace no one was injured; it was definitely a scary moment.  Our insurance company was great to work with and we had the car in the shop that afternoon.  It took a bit to complete the repairs, but it's like new again.

CHRISTMAS!!

At the end of December we traveled to Findley Lake, NY to spend Christmas at my grandma's house. Amelia had a wonderful time playing with her cousin Hannah.  Of course the snow outside made it all the more enjoyable.  And when I say snow, I mean record lake effect snow fall that made national news...  65" over the course of 4 days.  We made it home just in time to ring in the New Year in Greenville.  We were glad for the extra family time.

About a week after returning to Greenville, we hopped back in the car and made our way to Charlotte, NC.  We had a week of training at SIM USA headquarters called SIMGo.  It's the second of three programs at SIM (SIMStart, SIMGo, SIMSendOff).  We detailed a little of what went on there in our last prayer letter.  Check the Prayer Letter archive if you missed it!  Our time there was challenging, refreshing, and educational all wrapped up in one.  We also managed to have a little fun:

But there were plenty of serious moments too.  One session in particular stuck in my mind with everything that has gone on in our lives between Thanksgiving and New Years.  The session was about developing a theology of risk.  The document they compiled on the subject is some 13 pages long, but very well written.  Because I can't really put it in better words myself, I wanted to copy some of the statements from the document.

We are confident that our sins are forgiven through Christ, that we have been given eternal life, and that our bodies will be raised incorruptible.
Therefore all of our decisions should be made in the light of eternity.
[Rom. 8:14-39; 1 Cor. 15, esp. v.58; 1 Tim. 6:12-16; 2 Tim. 1:11-12; 2 Tim. 4:6-8; Heb.
13:13-14; Rev. 2:8-11]

We serve a caring and faithful God; therefore we affirm that our security is based ultimately in God’s providence rather than on our circumstances. We are to fear God, not people.
Therefore prayer must be our first and last response to crisis. While many types of crisis may create fear, decisions should not be made or actions taken based on fear. Our calm confidence is our best witness to our living faith in God. No major decision should be made without reference to the character of God.
[Josh. 1:6-9; 1 Sam. 17:45-47; Ps. 20:7; Ps. 33:16-22; Ps. 34:6-10; Ps. 91; Prov. 21:30-31;
Isa. 31:1-3; Matt. 10:26-31; 2 Tim. 4:16-18]

We affirm that the mission given to us (to make disciples, baptize, and teach) is rooted in God’s eternal love for humankind and is therefore more important than a simple consideration for our personal safety. Rather, it includes a willingness to give our all, including our safety and even our lives. 
Therefore, while we have a high regard for life, our lives and that of others as God’s gift of high value, we do not rule out the possibility of making decisions which might put us in danger or result in suffering or even death. We weigh up the value of our lives in terms of God’s great love for us, the ministry that He has given to us, and the lives of those that He has called us to serve.
[Ac. 20:22-24; Ac. 21:12-14; Rom. 14:7-8; 2 Tim. 2:8-10; Rev. 12:11. Also Esth. 4:16; Dan.
3:13-18]

I've been asked on a few occasions about how safe we will be at Mbingo and I admit, I've let my mind wander through various scenarios from deadly outbreaks to outright military assault on the hospital, formulating my response to each and how I would go about protecting my family.  But I think God has used the recent destabilizing events in our lives to radically change my perspective on risk.  Being in God's will doesn't guarantee physical safety and in fact it may put us in harms way.  But nothing surprises Him and it's not just our knowledge, skills, and ability that we have chosen to hand over to God, it is our lives as a whole.

-Michael