The Newmarches in Nepal

image from Magnific

Not always, but often, I wake up with a worship song in my head.  Over the last few weeks, the song “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” has been featuring quite a lot.  It plays as I wake, and as I head downstairs to get on with the morning jobs.

I have not felt particularly productive over this season of packing.  This is an unpleasant feeling, because I am accustomed to being Productive and Organised and Capable.  A Very Useful Engine, as the Fat Controller would say.

It’s not a bad thing for me to be reminded (again) that this is not where my worth comes from.  However, I would prefer to (re)learn this at some other time, and not when our international move is less than two weeks away.

As we sort out our household, among the things that I can easily get rid of, and the things that I box up, there are other things that I pause over.  Boxes I haven’t looked in since we moved to this particular house four and a half years ago, with diaries from my teenage years, letters from friends I haven’t seen in a couple of decades.  A bundle of cards from when I was born, welcoming me into the world.  I only have so much time to sort uninterrupted while the kids are at school, but I use some of it to sit and look through them, looking for names I recognise.  I sit surrounded by love.  Also dust.  But mostly love.

Over the last few months, we have felt loved and supported by our families and friends and by our church in a way that has, at times, surprised us.  Our initial uncertainty around sharing this next chapter, and around asking for support as we seek to follow God’s call, met with openness and warmth.

We are surrounded by love.

And through it all, God’s faithfulness.

Jehovah Jireh.  The God who provides.

Through the love that surrounds us and bolsters us up with encouragement and reassurance.  Through the love that practically engages with our needs.

His loving mercies sustain those little engines zipping smoothly through their to-do lists, and the overwhelmed ones who don’t feel so very useful right now.  And each morning they are new again.

– Alex

04/06/2026

As of today, there are six weeks to go until we leave. There’s still a lot to pack (most of it, really). Aside from a few packing boxes here and there, and a few gaps where there didn’t use to be gaps, our home looks mostly the same as it usually does. But the lasts are steadily rolling in. Last sessions with clients. Before long, the last swimming lesson, the last riding lesson, the last day of school. I’m thankful to only be working part-time, but even still my brain is feeling very full.

I remember times I’ve sat with clients who were struggling in the in-between seasons and spaces of their lives. Humans don’t like liminal. We like to be here, or there. We don’t like trying to straddle here and there simultaneously.

There’s probably a sermon illustration in there.

Next up is compiling the stuff we want to freight over. We’re trying to minimise what we bring, and stick to the essentials. Which for our family is books and board games and Lego, mostly. With maybe some clothes to fill the gaps.

Sometimes when I am feeling overwhelmed I make lists of our carry-on luggage, contemplate which book(s) I will carry with me squeezed in among the baby wipes (aeroplane tray tables = germ city) and notebook and pencils and card games (for the long hours in the airport) and laptop and change of clothes. Tish Harrison Warren’s “Prayer in the Night” (IVP, 2021) of course, but what else?

But I do have a while to decide, I suppose.

– Alex