Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Just Your Basic I-Haven't-Written-Anything-In-Six-Months Update

Hey everyone! 

If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook (OK, let’s be honest … if you follow Katie on Instagram or Facebook) you probably noticed that we were on waaaaaaay too many airplanes over the summer.

[Side note: never did I ever think that my mind would immediately go to being politically correct when I mentioned the word “summer”. To all my southern hemisphere friends, please forgive me. I mean the months of June—September.] 

We had planned to be back in the States for Luke & Jessica’s wedding and it seemed that things just kept getting added on to our trip! It was a very busy couple of months but we felt so very filled to the brim in our spirits with it all. God answered some prayers that we had asked and a few that we hadn’t asked about as well! More on that later.

Jordan and I hadn’t been back to Guinea since 2013, when we were there for the Mano Conference that Vineyard Fellowship partnered with. I had tried to visit and Mom and Dad had tried to come to the ship but with the Ebola outbreak, our plans kept getting cancelled. So it was a real treat to be able to be there for three whole weeks at the start of our trip. And bonus! My brother was in-between moving countries and was there for most of the time that we were. We even got to take a week’s trip up to the Fouta, where I grew up. A lot of West Africa can look similar—jungles made up of mango and palm trees, red dirt roads, and crazy humidity—but each country is so different and beautiful in its own way. Every time I go back to Guinea, I am hit full force with the realization of how much I love that country. 


It was great to do life with Mom, Dad, and Hannah. The mission field changes all the time with people coming and going, and so even though I knew a few of the people that they work with, there were a lot of new people. It was great to say hi to old friends and be able to put some faces to some names. 


Those three weeks flew by way too fast, as time always does when you’re with people you love! BUT … we are so excited to say that we’ll be seeing them soon! They are going to the States for a short furlough in January and will be stopping by Cotonou to see us on the ship!! 

From Guinea we flew to Europe and made another few stops. Our good friends from the ship, Jan, Elisabeth and Bella Tuinier were in Holland for a few weeks before moving on to their next mission in the Dominican Republic. Jan was taking care of his friend’s cargo ship so it was quite fun to live on a ship for a few more days with them. [Except this ship had a few amenities that ours doesn’t, my favorite being a jacuzzi. We had a great time being tourists with them for a few days, after which we took a train to southern Germany to see my dear friend Sarah and her husband Erkai. She is working at Black Forest Academy and her husband is working for an engineering company. They are in a nice little corner of Germany that is about an hour from Switzerland and ten minutes from France. We took a day hike to the Alps—saw snow in June!—and they treated us to brats, sauerkraut, and fondue (at separate meals!). It was SO good to get a glimpse into their lives! 



We had looked and looked and looked for tickets for this summer and were really happy with the ones that the travel agency Mercy Ships uses was able to get. One sweet selling point was that our itinerary had us arriving into Dayton (20 minutes from home) at 5:30 on Friday evening. Perfect, right?? Well, American Airlines had other plans. Our last flight (90 minutes to home!!) was delayed and that should have warned us but we still happily boarded with thoughts of Mom’s home-cooking dancing through our heads. We had already gotten the safety speech when the Captain came over the intercom: “Attention ladies and gentlemen … we can’t get one of our engines to start, so we’re going to have to ask you all to de-plane while we try to figure this out.” We all got off the plane and waited around for 20 minutes until they told us what we expected: our flight was cancelled and we would all have to re-book. Jordan and I fairly flew down to customer service, followed by at least 100 people. We managed to get to the frontish end of the line and were told that we could either wait on standby for another flight to Dayton in three hours or get tickets on a flight to Cincinnati—also in three hours. Since we’d just heard at least five other people take the standby option, we figured it would be best to just go to Cincinnati. Easy, right? 

Wrong. All ELEVEN of our flights were on one itinerary and since we had booked with SIX different airlines, that meant six different currencies that had to run through some computer program before we could get our two new tickets that would put us home at 2 am. We sat at the counter for no less than a half hour, taking up exactly 50% of the agents available, and avoiding looking behind us at our fellow victims, whose eyes slowly turned into machine guns while we waited. 

It was awkward.

But we got on the flight, managed to get some sleep (we were going on about 23 hours of wake time by this point) and landed in Cincinnati, where Jordan’s parents had graciously driven to pick us up. We got home at 2 am, slept until exactly 5:30 am, when jet lag kicked in. 

But I digress. 

Despite a bit of a rotten start, our time in the States was absolutely fabulous. We got to meet Jessica, our new sister and be a part of her and Luke's wedding. We traveled a lot, seeing family in the South and Indiana and traveling to Canada to see some friends from the ship. We hung out with friends at home, and it was wonderful to just be able to take an entire Sunday afternoon to do nothing but be with each other. One of the things we really miss when we're on the ship is hanging out in nature--so we took lots of walks at Brukner Nature Center and quite a few motorcycle rides! 

[Disclaimer: There are many photos that I already shared on Instagram, so rather than overwhelm this already long post, I'm leaving some out!] 




We were so blessed and our hearts were filled to the brim!

Last, but certainly not least, it was so good to catch up with many of YOU! Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to share on such a public forum. We really appreciated getting time to share in more detail and we loved catching up on life with all of you. 

[On that note, if me posting on here once a year is not as often as you’d like, feel free to follow us on Instagram (username: kadiatustull) or Facebook (Katie Stull or Jordan Stull). We tend to post more pictures of day-to-day life with some quick updates.]

When we went back to the States for Christmas two years ago, we were also deciding whether or not we should we extend our time with Mercy Ships. We were really back and forth on the whole thing and couldn’t find a peace either way. God took us on an a very personal journey when we got back to the ship and we decided to extend for another two years, bringing our commitment to November 2017. 

Now that a year has come and gone, we had been thinking and praying about what would be next. Over and over again while we were in the States this summer, we were shown that our next thing is to move back to Ohio and for Jordan to join Stull Woodworks again. We could not be more excited! It blows me away that God cares about the peace of our hearts and let us know undoubtedly that this is next. 

That just makes us even more excited to be on the Africa Mercy. We have decided that instead of leaving in November, we will actually leave in August of 2017. This is for a couple of purely logistic reasons: 1) Tickets are cheaper from where the ship will be in August compared to where where the ship will be in November; 2) It makes more sense for me to handover to the next Chief Steward before the field service starts as opposed to in the middle of it and 3) It works best for Stull Woodworks for Jordan to be back in this summer. 

We feel like this year is a year of completion—not necessarily for our time in missions, but for this season. We’re excited to get the most out of every thing we can. We are excited to pour into friendships here and make more memories with these incredible people. We’re excited to be back in West Africa—we love Benin already and can’t wait to explore the country some more! We’re excited to give our jobs the best that we have. In short, we’re excited to live these next few months to the fullest! 

Thanks for walking with us. 



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