Official Mancilla Life Update

It’s hard to believe how the month of May seemed like yesterday, but also light years ago. On May 16th, we put our house up for sale (very odd and ironic, considering it was also May 16th that we closed on that house in 2005!). Anyway, many good and well-thought-out reasons went into that particular decision, not the least of which was Adam’s ongoing employment issues, and probably the greatest of which was our dream to be part-time missionaries to Guatemala and the expenses that would require of us. It was not an easy decision for me (if you know me at all, you know that I am a “nester” – I find great comfort in the haven that is our home), but I felt God challenging me to let go of my grip on the things of this world and all its material possessions and the sense of identity and security that we falsely draw from them… In any case, I submitted to this challenge and agreed to put the house up for sale, knowing as long as I had Adam, I could make a comfy home for us wherever God called us to go. The Lord gave me lots of reassurance on this and I even began to be excited by the adventure of it all!

Well, 4 months, 1 open house, about 30 showings, and about 20 walk-throughs of other properties up for sale later, we re-evaluated. And we saw that God has opened the door for us to stay right where we are, on Christopher Court! God generously provided in the employment department and although we are still paycheck-to-paycheck (it’s hard to imagine a time where we won’t be), we are capable of meeting our mortgage obligations each month. In fact, it became very clear to us that it’s less expensive (for now at least) to just stay put. So, that’s what we’re doing. For the time being, my home is still my home and I’m thrilled that it is so. I’ve pondered the possible reasons for the urgency we felt back in the spring to put our house on the market, and I’ve concluded that we simply could have been facing a test. Perhaps God wanted to make us consider just how much we’d be willing to sacrifice in order to be obedient to His call!

And speaking of His call…it looks like we are Guatemala-bound in December! We had a meeting with our other part-time missionary friends on Saturday night, and we have heard from our brothers and sisters in Guatemala of several needs that we can help meet in the month of December. We will be gone for a week again, but hopefully we can accomplish a whole lot in that time. We’re also going to begin planning our spring-break trip down, as well. Very exciting, but very intimidating as well, since Adam and I will once again be faced with airfare and hotel and incidental costs associated with the trip. And it’s NOT a cheap trip to take! The missions committee at church will help somewhat, but we will have to raise money or save all our pennies or both. We are starting to think about fundraising ideas, so if anyone has brilliant ideas in that department, we’d love to hear ‘em!

In the meantime, I can’t begin to express the real sense of blessing I feel each and every day to have the home that we have, and to also be so involved in the ministry that is dearest to our hearts as a couple. I’ve been smiling a lot lately…I have so much to be thankful for. With the birth of Elijah, my family feels rich and full of beautiful and amazing people. With the coming of autumn, life feels full of wonderful times to come and beautiful memories yet to be made. It really does feel like harvest-time!