Hailey

   The words for this post have been bubbling up in my heart for a long time now, and in honor of Hailey's birthday today, I am letting them out. I am so happy and blessed to be celebrating Hailey's birthday with her for a third year in a row! We are BIG birthday celebrators in the Lopez family (as people who know us well know), and we have been anticipating her birthday for a while now!

   Even though we celebrate and rejoice over her today though, life is bitter-sweet right now! In the midst of this crazy stage of our lives, we are on the verge of making another huge transition and experiencing a great loss-Hailey will be leaving us!

   We were still in Honduras making plans to move Stateside when Hailey popped the question on me over the phone-could she come live with us? Josh and Natalie had tried their hardest to move to Dallas to support us and be close to us throughout our big transition and surgery stage with Joel. The doors ended up closing for them, but during a Stateside family conversation one day about their possible move, Kara supposedly looked at Hailey and said, "You can go Hailey!" Hailey says that at that moment she knew that she would be coming to live with us. And move in with us she did!

   She committed to a year in Dallas with us, a time where she felt her focus would be helping our family in any way she could during our most difficult months as we moved, transitioned and went through surgeries with Joel. Hailey had previously applied and been approved to be sent on a team to Africa as a missionary through African Inland Mission, an organization focused on sending missionaries to share the gospel with un-reached people groups of Africa...but she was in a waiting process. What she thought would be a relatively quick journey, ended up taking a few years, and in the midst of the wait, God put Dallas and us on her heart. It has been a journey of faith for her-a journey with stops and go's, ups and downs, tears and laughter, but one thing is certain: God is in the business of molding His character in this girl and showing her His higher ways.

   These past two weeks have been a whirlwind! Hailey was finally assigned to a team leaving for Uganda and just a few days ago found out she will be leaving in February 2017, which means she has a lot of work to do to prepare for her trip. All of the sudden, she will be leaving us permanently to go to Ohio in just a few weeks here, and of course, we are heartbroken to see her go! But we have no shadow of a doubt that this is part of God's plan for her life, and we are excited and overjoyed that she is being obedient to Him by going where He leads her.

   The memories I will keep of our time with Hailey this year will forever be treasured in my heart. Words really can't express the bond I have formed with my precious sister and the way we have learned to depend on one another through life's trials and joys this past year. More and more layers have been stripped away as we have gotten to know each other in a much deeper way and learned to be raw and real with one another. Besides Marvin, she has been my closest friend this past year and my right-hand girl. We have done the nitty-gritty together and have lived real life together. We have had the great blessing of praying together and studying the Word together almost every day this past year as well as challenge one another spiritually! We have explored Dallas together and enjoyed walks and outings this year. We have cooked and done projects together and planned trips and taken them over and over. We have tackled house work and buying groceries together. We have taken care of the kids together. And we have grown tremendously together.

   Hailey has grown and changed tremendously this past year. I have seen with my own eyes a girl who lays down her will and her crowns over and over at the feet of her Savior. I have seen a girl who confesses and cries tears over her sin to, in turn, have beauty come from ashes. I have seen a girl who cries tears for the lost and has grown in compassion and love for the people around her. Hailey has learned to be a servant. She serves us everyday in our home and carries our burdens with us, as well as serves people around us in general. She has learned to love her nephew and niece unconditionally and care for them and for us in tremendous ways. God has used her to give us grace and lighten our load tremendously this year.

It will be painful to separate, but I am once more amazed at how everything that happens in this life seems to constantly point back to our eternal destination-the one place where we will finally be home and will finally be together. Just today a friend from church was talking to us about a C.S. Lewis book he was reading that talks about nostalgia, and it struck a chord in my heart. I found this passage from the book:

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

   As a third culture kid living across seas for a long time, I (and my family) have gone through many experiences of moving, saying good-bye, having people leave, being the one to leave loved ones, and starting over. It's easy to put up a defensive shield and pretend it's not hard, but it always is. It's always hard to start over and look back and think of our most cherished memories. It's hard to invest in, love and build relationships to later be ripped apart. Sometimes even the staying when things become monotonous or challenging can be hard, but I know that these things are reminders that we are just pilgrims here on this earth. We are on a journey that's taking us toward our real home-Heaven! If only we could remember and realize that these intense longings we have can and will truly be fulfilled there one day! If only we could understand the joy we will experience and the wholeness we will finally feel! If only we knew that these things are the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, and news from a country we have never visited...yet!

   We covet your prayers for Hailey as she embarks on this new adventure with the Lord. Please pray for her and the team she will be going with as they say goodbye, figure out logistics and prepare. Pray more than anything that His kingdom will be extended, and He will be glorified.