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This weekend we broke the news to the children that we will be leaving the only home they have ever known, and heading back to England. To be honest I had no idea how they would react to the news, but had little faith that it would be positive. Given they are all girls, I figured it would be somewhere on a sliding emotional scale between sad and utterly devastating—I was preparing myself for tears.

For our eldest daughter (now 7 years old), I had hoped that God would appear to her in a miraculous dream telling her where we were going and somehow let me off the hook. But alas no. I knew all along it would be my privilege and responsibility to lead my family into the purposes of God for us. In God’s economy, it’s all part of his leadership training.

So I did really what I only know how to do—I preached the word of God to them.

I took them to the scriptures, and I showed them in John’s gospel that after the resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” I explained to them that God sent Jesus into the world to show us that he was the way to the Father—and that Jesus is sending us into the world to do the same.

I told them that Jesus sent mummy and daddy to America because he wanted people to know him. I told them about people at Harbor who had given their lives to Jesus since we had come here. I told them that Jesus had sent them to their schools, and to their friends, for the same reason. And I told them that now Jesus was sending us back to England, because there were more people he wanted to know and love. And then I placed my hands on their heads and prayed for them, “Peace be with you.”

And amazingly they were all okay with the news. No tears.