Benj and Steph: April 2014

Once again, the months have flown by and so much has changed! God has been good to us and we are thankful. He continues to provide for us and we look forward to always seeing what He has for us next.

The biggest provision that God has given us since we've been on this journey together has been family! We have a very close and supportive family, but since college it has been a challenge to be near them or to even see them more than once a year. As hard as it is to be away from our biological families, we have found that God gives us people in our lives that become our adopted family! Everywhere we've lived (Virginia, Florida, and now Idaho), we have had friends along the way that are that adopted family. They see us at our best and our worst, and though some are not so closely tied to us anymore, for that time, we needed them in our lives. They help us grow, they give us hope, they give us opportunities to love and be loved. And each time we have to say goodbye it just gets harder.

We better know the importance of the family structure and how beneficial it is on so many levels. God created us to live in community. When we decided to move to Idaho, we were excited to live near family and see our niece and nephews grow up! As we've posted before, Benj's older brother, sister-in-law, and 3 kids have lived in Idaho for the past 8 years and invited us to come live with them for the first year that we lived here. We then moved about 10 minutes away to have our own home but still saw them at least once a week if not more sometimes. We are so thankful that we were able to be such a close part of Benj's family and made moving here so much easier! A couple of months ago, however, we had to say goodbye to them because his brother got a job offer and they will be moving to Alabama. We are so excited for them and amazed at how God provided so quickly and abundantly for them, but heartbroken to have to be far away from family once again.

But as I said above, God has always been faithful to provide an adopted family for us through the friends we have. Even before they thought about moving, God put some amazing people in our lives to become that family unit for us. We have come to really appreciate the relationships that only God could have put in place for us and though we already miss Nat, Shan and the kids, we feel so loved and cared for by all of these friends! We know that, at least for now, this is right where God wants us and we are thankful for how He provides.