The Hills Roll On

How can it be only 5:30 pm and I’m ready to go to bed?!

That’s first trimester for ya. The pace of life isn’t merciful on me either; things are only increasing in intensity. Monday we start our LAST CLASS FOREVER (at least at Bethany College); three weeks later we graduate. After that we’ll be staying on for one year at Bethany College as volunteer live-in mentors for the married students and families on campus. There is no doubt that this is the ministry God has invited us to partner with Him in during this time. It’s such a blessing to serve the Master’s servants in this place in this time. Pouring our lives into others always has Kingdom impact; so we step forward in faith knowing He will be faithful to provide for all our needs.

Our greatest need right now is for prayer; it’s another time of walking by faith and not by sight. We are facing significant financial realities and deadlines that are beyond our means. We need VISAS, babysitter money, Tara’s outgrowing her few pants, Eden keeps growing..life is happening! The temptation to pity or bail is strong; so please pray that we will ‘abide in His Love’ in these intense weeks. If He doesn’t provide, we are lost. And that is everyone’s story, not just ours; if He doesn’t give me strength to take the next breath, I am done (at least this side of eternity!). So it’s not the hardest thing in the world to admit, to trusted friends, that we are relying on His Grace in a most personal and heartfelt way. Your covering of prayer and willingness to hear and obey is the most precious gift you could ever give Him..and us. Seriously.

Beyond that intense and daily-felt need, our life is overflowing with life and joy! Little baby is thriving in momma’s womb (2 months already!), Eden’s vocabulary is soaring (her latest favorites are “nice” (as an exclamation of approval), “yeshh” (’yes’) and “poo” (for anything…don’t ask me why). Gavin is working hard finishing up classes and working on Maintenance, Tara is doing administrative wonders balancing family, home, school, work, and mentoring. This weekend we welcomed the new fall student families. We are helping them settle in, get their bearing, and beginning to build new friendships. We just love being able to bless others by the simplicity of practical help, relationships, and living life together. Being live in mentors is such a perfect opportunity to grow in that, I can’t even explain how honored we are to be in these roles. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it! God has given us eyes to see beyond what the world counts as ‘worthy’; so we can rest in our humble lots in life, content in times of plenty and in times of want. It’s His grace…it’s always His grace. Who else would count giving up the right to the “American Dream” unless God was doing some deep heart work. Maybe someday we will have all kinds of financial resources, maybe never. But today, we have a safe place to lay our heads, loving family and friends, and food on the table. I call that blessed. Thank you for letting me share from my heart, cuz I need to speak life, faith and hope to myself every day! It’s so easy to get caught up in the busyness of life, I don’t always pause to savor the intricacies of His Presence and Provision already present in my life. May you be blessed in reading this and in your time savoring Him to recognize the blessing in your life. And feel free to share it with us; God knows we need one another!

His and yours,
Tara (for me, Gavin, Eden and bun-in-the-oven)

PS. Lots of pictures and updates (and Eden’s first video!) on the website: comments are always an encouragement!

www.thehillsrollon.com

Well everyone, the word may have trickled out to you already, but it’s official, the Hills have a ‘little mound’ (that’s a little hill, you see), only a blueberry size right now, but come April Fools Day 2007, will be welcomed out into this world as Hills Baby #2!!!We’re just thrilled to bits (as you can imagine)! Eden doesn’t seem to quite grasp the reality, but soon enough she’ll have plenty of opportunity to bond with her first sibling. She’s so ready for this: since we moved onto campus in May we’ve shared an apartment with a wonderful German couple who have a 5 month old daughter who has us all wrapped around her little chubby fingers (Eden included!). Every day Eden wakes up and invariably asks for two things: ‘bee-bee’ (baby Jocelin) and ‘ash-ur’ (Asher; her 2 year old best friend on campus). Such a relational little girl! When she’s mildly hurt we ask her “do you want a hug” and she toddles over to fall into our arms. I just love that she’s finding safe comfort in the context of loving relationship…healthy foundations in the making. What a privilege to know, love and raise Eden into the woman she is becoming. That God would bless us with another moves us to happy tears. Thank you everyone for your loving prayers and cheering us on as we walk by faith this year. We wrote in our last newsletter about our plans to stay on at Bethany College of Missions as live-in married mentors. Assuming a healthy pregnancy (so far just a bit more nausea than last time) we’ll fulfill our commitment to stay at BCOM until Aug 2007. So our ‘lil mound’ will be American-born (hello dual citizenship!). I’ll be connecting with a Catholic charity service here in the cities that other BCOM international students have used (full service hospital, midwifery, the whole nine yards) which is quite affordable for prenatal and delivery. We’ll sort things out to see the exact details, but for now, we are confident that God will provide all this baby needs to thrive. Maybe even jobs after graduation (wouldn’t that be sweet…after 5 years of no paychecks, wow!) More on that later, for now, we just wanted to share our happiest of happy news with you.

His and yours,

Gavin, Tara, Eden and ‘lil mound’