What are your plans?

By now all time zones have celebrated the New Year coming in and we are officially in 2019! We are filled with so much joy & hope with the start of this year for many reasons and a big one of those being that we are Lord willing, moving to Haiti this year! I (April) love this time of year because of all the possibilities that lay ahead! I would LOVE to hear from you all on if you do anything specific at the beginning of the year? Do you choose a word to focus on? Do you set any goals or resolutions? Do you start any new projects or declutter after Christmas? I know many people choose this time of year to do some sort of fast or start a new bible reading plan too!

In past years, I’ve chosen a word to kind of theme my year around, like Diligent or Intentional etc. This year, a few things kept coming to my mind, which was remaining in Christ, resting in Him and abiding. So I think this year I want to focus more on doing things that will allow me to just rest in Him, soaking in His peace & goodness and thinking on how much He loves me.

One of the ways I am going to try and do that is by UNPLUGGING from social media for the entire month of January. Since I will have more time on my hands, I am excited for a few things I’m going to be doing, which are:

1. LEARNING CREOLE! Now that we are really getting to the point of us preparing to move to Haiti, I knew it was time for me to start my studies! We will have 6 months of intense study with a local Haitian teacher when we move there, but I would love to have a head start to help. With my month of unplugging from social media, I will have even more time to hop on Haiti Hub and do my lessons, which I am really excited for. Have you ever learned another language before? I’d love to hear which one!

2. PRACTICING MY GUITAR! I specifically learned the guitar so I could play and sing, which was a dream of mine for years. I’m still a beginner by all means because I haven’t had a lot of time to practice with us raising support so I’m excited to try and do a bit more especially this month, during my unplug from social media.

3. READING MORE! I love to read, Jim and I are both big readers. I am doing three new things reading/writing wise and that is reading Matt Chandler’s book called “Take Heart”, doing a new 4 week bible study called “Rest & Release” by Courtney Joseph and starting a new prayer journal where I write down my bible verse each day, what I’m thankful for, prayer requests etc! I have found when I’ve done these in the past, it’s so helpful for me to look back on and see God’s hand and faithfulness in my life and writing down scripture has always helped me retain it better.

Then along with these things I am going to do another big DECLUTTER session in our house as we get closer to the big move! I also plan on possibly taking knitting back up this winter but we will see about that. 😉 Jim and I are also both focusing on our health pretty big right now and not just weight loss wise but truly working from the inside out on making sure our bodies are functioning the way they should be. I’ve been working with a few amazing people who are helping me on this journey of healing.

So what are your plans for 2019? What do you hope it holds? I know whatever it does hold for you and I both…He is already there, He is so faithful and He is enough! May you find the passions God has put inside of you and awaken them, growing so closely to Him this 2019 that it saturates all you do and that others are changed for the good because of it! 

Love,

April