A Goodly Heritage

 Hello friends! 

    I hope you have all had as amazing of a week as I have had! As I mentioned last week, this week was spring break, so I took the opportunity to travel back to Maryland and spend the week with my parents. We had such a great time, took a day trip to DC( I hadn’t realized the cherry blossom festival was this week, double bonus!), got my senior pictures done, and even spent a day just baking. 

    Being able to spend this week home, with my parents, really got me thinking about my upbringing and just how blessed I was to have been born into a Godly, Christian home. Both my mom and dad are such strong Christians, who put everything they had into their family. Doing their best to raise us to love the Lord and to want to serve Him. 

    This week, I specifically wanted to talk about my dad and just how much he means to me. His birthday was on Saturday and we were able to celebrate before we took off to come back to Indiana. The older I get, and the more that I can see and notice other peoples relationships with their parents, the more I have come to appreciate my dad. His walk with God has been so evident throughout our family life. There were numerous times in my life where my dad would pray for something, then tell us he was praying for it, just so that we could all be amazed when God answered that prayer. He really made God real to us from such a young age. Growing up on the mission field presented us with an entirely different set of challenges that families in the States may never encounter, my dad saw that as the case and strove to balance ministry and family in a successful way that I’ve rarely seen. So many struggle in this area, and understandably so. I am not even sure I could do it well. But my dad made a point to keep a good balance in our home. I never was made to feel, as some do, whether or not my dad knew me or not. To this day we have maintained a strong relationship. 

    On the mission field, we did so much as a family, my parents always reserved a day, either Monday or Friday, depending on how our week went, for us to go out as a family. Sometimes we did something awesome, like waterfall jumping (my personal favorite), and sometimes it was super basic, like walking around IKEA for free AC, but no matter what it was, it was always our favorite time of the week. Our  parents didn't have much, but they gave us the world just through the little things they did.           

    Not only were we able to enjoy activities as a family, but my parents were especially careful to include each of us in ministry. My parents told us often that God did not call my Dad into ministry, but He called our entire family. They saw it that way and treated us as such. All four of us had opportunity to serve in whatever capacity we were able to. They helped us find, and develop our spiritual gifts and taught us to look for small ways to serve all around us. We not only played hard as a family, but we served, and worked hard as a family.                                

    I am so grateful for the family God has placed me into. We certainly did not have a perfect upbringing, but I could not have asked for a more Christ-centered home, and that is mostly due to the Godly leadership of my father. 

Thank you all for your prayers and support! I love you all

-Beca