Strength in Waiting

     Whew! With Christmas officially over, we are now even closer to our mission posts. The Eckstines and Sid are REALLY close as they get ready to leave for St. Lucia in the Carribean on the 19th of this month. Others will head back to the mission house at General Cepeda in Mexico. Susanna, Teresa, and we are headed to the Philipines in late January but only after receiving an official invitation from the Bishop. All we have to do now is wait and wait and wait...aaagh! This is hard to do after gaining the full momentum from our first short-term mission trip to Mexico and the completion of our Intake program in early December.
     We had an awesome "Send-off" Mass at Our Lady of the Bayous in the first part of December. Family Missions Company allowed a break to all of the missionaries to visit family and friends over the holidays. Most everyone left Big Woods and soon the Alvarez clan was left with a few of the other "seasoned" missionaries. Odilio was feeling a strong call to return to Kansas but with little cash on hand it was going to be almost impossible--ok, it was totally impossible. We had enough gas money to get to maybe Shreveport and back (as long as there were a lot of downhills on the way back). Anyways, we decided to pray one night when the call seemed so strong and real. We said,"Lord, this is going to be totally up to you if you want us to go because we see no way for us to do it on our own. You must provide if this is Your will." We'll just sit back and wait.
     Not long after our family prayer, Stacie got a call from back home. Her mom, Debbie, wanted to know what our plans were for Christmas. There was nothing really to say except that we were going to plan on a quiet and simple holiday meal together. Surprised that we hadn't made any travel plans, Debbie informed us about a good friend of hers that wanted to give to us. It wasn't an ornament or a fruitcake, but a gift card with enough money for gas to and from Kansas! No, way! Yes!!! We hadn't told any of our relatives about our urge to travel back home but we knew that it was all God. Amazing!
     We ended up arriving in enough time to rest and go to the Midnight Latin Mass at St. Anthony's in Wichita. It was SO good to see our friends there again. We even had kept it a secret that we were in town for a few days because our girls wanted to surprise the Leybas (operation: success). We were so blessed with the many invites for lunch and dinner(special thanks to the Swans, Leybas, Reals, Hardys, Habashys, Hauges, and Canos) that we only had to cook once! Needless to say, our schedule was booked every day we were there. One of the sweetest blessings came from our good friends, the Swans, and their 9yr old daughter, Anne. She was so excited to give us our gift when we visited and made sure that was the first thing we did as we entered. Anne had carefully inserted $20 each into two beautifully hand-made cards--One for "Mr. Odilio" and the other for "Ms.Stacie". She offered up some of her Christmas money for our Mission- specifically to go toward our plane tickets :).
     So, here we are again. We're back at Big Woods and just waiting. We are slowly trying to incorporate the mock schedule we have set for our life in mission. Please continue praying for us to be patient as we wait for the miracle that God is sending our way to be able to purchase our plane tickets to Manila. Waiting is hard but the glorious reward is worth it!
Isaiah 40:31 "but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
                    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
                    they shall run and not be weary;

                    they shall walk and not faint."



Samuel, Josh Leyba, Abe, Joseph Leyba




Maddie, Claire and Anna Leyba, Meredith



Fun with cousins- Kylie, Alli, and Justin Real



Intake 2010's last Mission Formation together