I was just reading in Psalm 90..."Oh, teach us to live wisely
and well! Come back, God, how long do we have to wait? Treat your
servants with kindness for a change. Surprise us with love...make up
for the bad times with some good times...let us see what you're best
at - the ways you rule and bless your children. And let the
loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work we
do. Oh yes. Affirm the work that we do." Dave and I are
both learning to live "wisely and well". We truly want what He
has for us, even if "what He has for us" is difficult to accept at
the time.
He has seen fit to
change our course, to redirect our steps. It has been the
hardest year of our lives. To those of you we haven't seen
face to face, we sincerely apologize for not filling you in
sooner. Until very recently we just didn't have much to say,
and really weren't even able to talk about "it".
So now we need
to bring you up to date:
A year ago in May, several
weeks before we were to leave Hungary on our scheduled U.S. home
assignment, Dave met with PIONEERS leadership in Hungary for what he
thought was his yearly evaluation. What ensued was not the
evaluation he expected. Rather, after several very difficult
and exhausting meetings, it became clear that we would not be
returning to Hungary with PIONEERS after our furlough. Several
days later we resigned before our team. They were shocked and
dismayed. We headed to the U.S. basically shattered.
We proceeded to visit our supporting churches in Orlando,
Denver, New York, and New Hampshire because our tickets were booked,
we wanted to connect with them, and we truly didn't know what else
to do. In Budapest, once the word got out, we had several
invitations to join other missions working there...we thought maybe
God "did this" to link us up with another mission. But then we
wondered why He would allow something so drastic to happen if He
intended us to find our way back there no matter what the venue.
We arrived in Wisconsin on Labor Day week-end, moved into a
wonderful peaceful farmhouse in the woods, on a lake. The kids
entered 4th, 7th, 9th grades, and college. Ben and Shelley
moved to the Milwaukee area much to our delight. We ministered
at our supporting churches in the area, and fully immersed ourselves
in their mission conferences, most 10 days in length. Our
sending church, Elmbrook, brought in an expert couple in working
with missionaries who told us, after hearing our story, that we
hadn't really even begun to deal with the pain of the process, and
it would be a long road. We entered into intensive counseling and
here we are. We tried to rush it, wanted to make our
counselors promise to get us better so we could return to missions
with barely a "blip," but it seemed each week more and more earth
was being laid bare and showing that our chewed up roots couldn't
nourish our life-trees.
We have been in close touch with the
Missions Pastors of Elmbrook, Westbrook, and Northbrook, Pioneers
Member Care and our Christian counselors and mentors. All year we
have been saying, "We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on
you" (II Chron. 20:12). The pain has been almost more than we can
bear at times, our tears and sorrow have been immense. Our kids are
devastated.
Both our mission agency and our sending church
have been very gracious, allowing us time to try to discern what God
has for us. But as much as we've searched and desired to
"hear" from God, nothing has been made plain to us. We simply
don't know what's next. We have recently made the decision to
stay in the Milwaukee, WI area, continue our counseling, and enroll
the kids in another year of school here. I start back to
school on Monday, an RN refresher course, done before
Christmas. After 5 years with Youth For Christ, 13 years of
being a pastor, and 13 a missionary, Dave will be doing landscaping
and working part-time as a specialist at the Apple Store (Macintosh
computers). He feels he needs a break from the expectations of
ministry in order to heal and regain a vision for the
future.
Our house in Hungary has been recently rented. In
August we moved into another farmhouse two miles down the same road,
on 6 acres (I think the bucolic life soothes us or something,
baaah). Elisabeth is researching what it takes to 1. raise
chickens 2. raise goats 3. get a lamb (for me, because I've always
loved them, but I know they're gross and I'd be disillusioned if I
had one up close). We have been outfitting our house off
CraigsList and with the help of some of our supporting churches,
since we came to America with one suitcase each.
So we hang
on to God's character. We know He is true, He is faithful, He
doesn't desert, He is patient with us, He will never stop adoring
us. We are simply enough. And our timing is not His,
obviously. We will wait on Him, not seeing what He has in mind for
us, but believing. We treasure your prayers and we'd love to
hear from you.
For those that give financially: Our last
paycheck from Pioneers will be the end of October (for November)
when we change from active status to associates. If you wish to
continue through the end of the year, or send in a one time gift, it
will be held in our account in order for us to be able to ship our
belongings back. Any funds left over after moving expenses
will be held in our account to allow us to take at least one
ministry trip a year with PIONEERS.
You are treasures to us.
We are so thankful for you. It has been many, many years that some
of you have been on our "team" - supporting and praying for us. We
are also grateful to PIONEERS for allowing us the privilege of
developing Worship From the Nations these past 13 years.
Please keep praying for us, and be in touch. We still need you on
our "team".
With love,
Dave & Sarah
Hall
