Wild Week

What a wild week it has been! From houseguests to house showings, Aaron and I have been kept so busy (and so separate) I hardly remember the sound of his voice. When he got up to preach yesterday, I was so captivated by how handsome he looked that I completely tuned out his words in favor of simply admiring him. Oops. Guess I'll have to download that sermon.

Anyway, things don't get any better this week. On the top of our priority list is: SELL THIS HOUSE! We have three days to do it. The couple that we bought our new (hope-we-still-get-it) home from called us to tell us that they've sold it to someone else. Sigh. Since we bought it on the contingency that ours would sell, this no-strings-attached offer trumps ours if we can't seal the deal on the house we are currently living in. And fast! Did you follow all that? At any rate, it's enough to give anyone an ulcer. Shoot up a prayer for us if you think of it. We fully trust that God knows what he's doing, but we're still going to knock on the doors of heaven like mad for the next 72 hours and pray God's will is the same as our wishes!

Another thing on my plate right now is an opportunity that cropped up through our weekend houseguests... It looks like I'm on my way to Liberia in January! We had an amazing family stay with us this weekend and we spent hours talking about our role as Christians in a global community. Peter, our guest, has been to Liberia and knows Robert (the pastor of Abide in the Vine) and Immanuel (the caretaker of Christ Is Our Hope), the men who are our contacts in Liberia. As it turns out, Lifewater International is taking a trip to Monrovia in January and they have room for a few people from our own fledgling Liberia team. Long story short, January is not a good time for Aaron to go, but it works great for me. It seems that I'll be heading over in a few months to pave the way for a team to go and work in November of 2008. Crazy, eh? I'm excited, but nervous, too. It didn't help when Peter mentioned something about machete attacks on white people... I'm sure I'm taking that way out of context! Besides, Lifewater knows what they're doing. Right?!

With all this going on, my book life seems to be slowing a bit. I think things are going well with After the Leaves Fall. I don't really know. Now that the official launch has come and gone, I guess it's just a matter of waiting to see what happens from here. And I have no new news to report on Summer Snow. It's in the works! If something fun develops, I'll let you know. Other than that, I'm still writing my third book. Not sure what's going to happen with that either, but I am having fun. It helped to have Peter and his family around this weekend as they are Catholics and Catholicism plays a role in book #3. Truthfully, this book is much slower going for me after writing my first two. It's just so ambitious, so full of gravity, twists and turns, that I'm finding it much more daunting to give it all the attention to detail it deserves. But I do know that I'll finish it, and if I can finish it like I've started it, I'll be pleased with the results. Hopefully I'll continue to grow and improve with each book I write.

Have a blessed week, wherever you may be. And stop back in a few days for info on my second-to-last blog tour stop. Later on this week I'll be popping in at Sally Bradley's site. You don't want to miss her!