We’ve been in Canada about 2 months now, and things are finally getting more comfortable for us. Routines are starting to take shape. We’re familiar with our immediate surroundings, have found a good church and are starting to make friends. After so much struggle for so many weeks to get acclimated up here, it’s feeling like we’re finally making some real progress towards a life of normalcy.

Two days ago, we needed to go back to the States to pick up some mail and do some banking business. It’s not far, only a 2 and ½ hour drive each way, but a trip into New York does involve an entire day away. We drove down, crossed the border without incident, visited our bank and mailbox and, of course, shopped at Target. All in all, it was a successful, if not very exciting visit.

At the end of the day, as we drove back across the border into Canada, a surprising feeling in the form of a thought gripped me: I don’t want to go back. An even more childlike voice came into my mind, quietly pleading, “Please don’t make me go back...

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It was a box of homemade chocolate chip cookies and on the box was handwritten these words ,"Welcome to the neighborhood!" I sat and cried. It wasn't the gesture but the timing that moved me to tears.

In the days prior I had become ready to unpack picture boxes and begin the process of hanging them on the walls. We had been living at our new address for nearly two months and I had resisted doing this. My resistance wasn't due to the lack of time or energy; there was a deep meaning in personalizing the spaces that held me back.

The meaning began several years ago when God gave me a promise in a verse. ...

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