Saying Goodbye

Melanie —  November 4, 2021

After two months in the USA, we are back home in Chippenham! The last 2 months have been a wonderful blessing to our family.  God provided for us in so many ways and we were able to connect with many, many dear friends and of course my (Melanie’s) family.  We all soaked up the sweet fellowship and also God’s beautiful creation in Oregon (very different than the beauty here in England).  We have many photos to share . . . watch this space for another post coming soon which will be full of photos from our trip!

For now, we’d like to travel back in time a little bit and share some photos from our last few weeks before we left home (August).  No only did we (Peter and I and the 4 youngest kids) leave for the USA at the end of August, our beloved daughter, Aliyah, left home too.  She flew to the Bahamas to meet the OM ship, Logos Hope, where is she now spending a year on board.  She is absolutely loving it and has so far visited the Bahamas, St. Lucia, Barbados and is currently in the middle of a 2-week voyage across the Atlantic to Africa.  We are so thrilled for her to be able to have this experience serving the Lord alongside a crew of people who come from many different nations. (If you aren’t already getting her updates and would like to, please follow this link to sign up.)

Even though we were and are, cheering Aliyah on in her adventure with Jesus, it was pretty tough to say goodbye.  This girl is an integral part of our family and we all love her dearly.  We all shed many tears as we hugged at the airport with aching hearts . . . as we’ve come home to Chippenham, it’s hit us all over again that she’s gone – the house just isn’t the same without her.  We are thankful to the God who holds us all in his hands as are far apart from her (and of course from Hannah too).  Peter and I have always said that we wanted to raise our children to fly, to launch out and change the world for Jesus. She belongs to the Lord, not to us and it’s a joy to watch her following Him.

Here are some photos from a family photo shoot we did (sadly due to us having Covid, we didn’t fit this in before Hannah left so she is missing from the photos!)

 

 

 

Before we left, we were able to have a graduation celebration for Aliyah, as well as a goodbye party.  Thankfully we all recovered from Covid in time to make it fit before we all left! Here are some photos from those events as well as some of her senior pictures (an American tradition). A good friend of ours took the photos when Aliyah was visiting the USA in April.

The group of us that gathered to celebrate Aliyah’s high school graduation.

Friends at her goodbye party






Oh my goodness, we love this girl so much and she will always be close in our hearts no matter where she is in the world.  Please pray for her, for God to be at work in and through her as she serves this year on the Logos Hope.  And please pray for us as we adjust to life at home without her.  Watch this space for more posts soon with a report and photos from our time in the USA!