Dear Friends and Family:
You haven’t heard from the Jarretts for more than six weeks, but all is well with our family. We do have many praises of God’s provision and some prayer requests. You will need to click on the link to read the entire message which is truncated by the website server.
I made a mostly uneventful recovery and am now completely healed from my surgeries; the surgeon has released me to lift heavy boxes, a timely release in light of the next bit of news: we are moving! More in a minute.
Amy continues to pursue a career as a full-time missionary in Kenya with Africa Inland Mission [AIM]. After passing the initial interview and reference process, she has filled out a doctrinal questionnaire and will send it in soon. She anticipates attending a candidate week camp in New York in early August. If accepted by the mission she would begin raising support following the camp.
Laura returned home yesterday after her 17-day trip to Japan with some exciting news. I’ll let her tell it in her own words: Thank you so much for your prayers for my trip to Japan. I am now back home in Indiana. (I arrived last night)
Praise be to God! I had a really good time in Japan. I was able to meet with two of my past students (who are not Christians) and also with my friend, Manami, whom I met last year when we got our driver’s licenses together.
I was able to go into the sanctuary and up to the 2nd floor of the church building for periods of time without any symptoms appearing from mold exposure. This means I can live in Sapporo and participate in several areas of ministry in the church as long as I don’t live in the church building. I am so thankful to God for opening up this door again!
Another exciting event occurred while I was there: I got engaged!! 
Many of you already know the situation, but for those of you who don’t, I will explain just a little for now. My fiancé’s name is Keisuke Noguchi. He is a member of the Grace Church Sapporo. Keisuke works with his dad in the family camera shop where they sell used and new cameras.
Keisuke is very musically talented, and loves the Lord very much. He has always been such an encouragement to me in my walk with Christ.
He and I met for the first time in 2006 when I first went to Japan in August. We served a lot together in the church and became good friends. We have been praying about marriage for a couple years now and Keisuke has gotten to come
and meet my family several times. He also got to meet my Mom, so I am so thankful for that.
Due to various health reasons and family situations, we had not been able to get engaged, but while I was in Japan these last few weeks, my Dad gave Keisuke the blessing to ask me to be his wife. SOOO we are finally engaged!!!!
It has been a long journey having to be separated by physical distance for half of our relationship! BUT God has used these difficult times for the growth of our faith in Him and teaching us to trust in His sovereign timing and plans.
We are excited about the plans that God has for us, and are so thankful to God for opening the doors for us to get married. We are hoping and praying to build a family built on the foundation of Christ, and are excited to serve Christ together as a team.
We are not set on a wedding date yet, but are praying and hoping to get married some time in August of this year, perhaps the 21st. I will let you know the date once we have it decided! We are planning to get married in the States and then when we go back to Japan, we will have a reception there too. I would appreciate your prayers for these next couple months as they will be very busy with the family move and wedding planning in 3 months!! Please pray that God will be glorified in it all, and that He will give us wisdom and direction on each new step.
I thank you all for the special part you have played in my life. Thank you for your love and prayers which mean so much to me! May God’s faithful and sovereign Hand be upon each of you today. He is so Faithful and Sovereign!!
Love in Christ, Laura Jarrett
There are three other major family expansion events planned in the second half of 2010. Becki Burke, Lisa Jarrett, and Debbye Biermann are all expecting babies (in that order). For Becki and Debbye, this will be a second child, but for Lisa it will be number twelve.
I may have mentioned that we had been considering selling our house in the past but didn’t feel that it was something we could do during Marty’s illness. I made the decision to downsize realizing it would be only Rachel and I living here much of the time in the future. With eight bedrooms, we wouldn’t need to change sheets often – we could just move from one bedroom to another which Rachel likes to do anyway, but I prefer my own bed. We started getting things cleared out with the idea of showing the house in spring.
We consulted with some realtors who shook their heads when they saw how much work was needed before we could show the house. The outlook in the real estate market was even more discouraging – there is a three-year backlog of available houses in our size and price range compared to current sales. We prayed and moved forward, feeling that God had led us to defer moving until this time.
Although we hadn’t listed the house or decided upon a realtor, word began to circulate that our house was going to be for sale. Several people contacted us including one couple who wanted to see the house right away. They had been looking at property and houses for over a year and didn’t care that the house wasn’t in showroom condition. I couldn’t even tell them how much we wanted for the house since we hadn’t studied the market. I just knew the replacement cost for insurance purposes which isn’t necessarily the same as market value.
After viewing the property and the house, they said they would like to make an offer, so I had some homework to do fast. With the help of my sons and a realtor friend, I made an offer to sell. We countered back and forth but didn’t reach an immediate agreement.
We decided we had better try to find out where God wanted us to move if the house sold right away, so we enlisted the help of another realtor friend to show us houses in the southeastern part of Hamilton County near some of our kids where Rachel helps with childcare. We looked for two days and found one we thought might work out; in doing so, we learned a lot about the price range and type of house we were seeking.
We put the moving process in the Lord’s hands, took a few weeks off of weeding out, and went to Florida and South Carolina for some family time which was important – the first time we had with Jon’s family since Marty’s memorial service. I slept a lot better on vacation than I had for many months.
We stayed in touch with the buyers by e-mail while in Florida where we saw two baseball games with daughter Beth’s Washington Nationals club. She is now back in Syracuse for her second season with the AAA team.
Before leaving Florida for South Carolina, we reached agreement with the buyers on a price with which we were both happy. We also heard that the house we were interested in buying had sold. We began the selling process by arranging inspections and various other steps including separating our driveway access to the house from the neighbor’s drive for a better future arrangement. We didn’t know where we were going to be living, but figured we were on a “need to know” basis with God. We wouldn’t need to know the answer to that question until we got back to Indianapolis.
We asked the realtor to find some other possible houses where we might move considering the location, price range, and other requirements that we had refined in the earlier process. When we returned, she had found some good possibilities, but one north of 146th and Allisonville really stood out. We put an offer on it which was countered at a level we liked and accepted. We are doing some mold testing on the house to ensure our mold-sensitive kids can live there. Those results will be back by the first of next week.
We hope to complete the closings on both houses before I leave for Kenya for two months on May 1. Our son, Patrick, can sign all documents with his power of attorney if we haven’t closed by May 1. Amy and Laura may end up supervising the move.
We would appreciate your prayers for getting a permit for driveway construction at our current house. This should be a slam dunk since we own the property where the drive will go, but the application is currently held up by a clerk’s workload following his two-week vacation. He won’t answer his phone or return phone calls. Please pray that he will be cooperative and diligent when the contractor meets with him tomorrow at 11 am. This contingency of an out for our buyer also affects the sellers of the new house who could lose that sale if we lost our buyer. Please pray that they will understand this delay which is beyond our control but not God’s.
Also, please pray that all inspections will be completed and any deficiencies can be readily solved. In this process misunderstandings and friction can pop up unexpectedly. Please pray that we will be able to glorify God and be a positive witness for Him through every turn of events. We praise God that He has brought everything together in a manner that only He could. He may show us that He has different plans and redirect us at some point, but we think this is His answer to our prayers.
Please pray that I will be able to get through the secretarial functions for Hope Ministries. I have quite a backlog of paperwork to do after the overwhelming response to the Marty Jarrett Memorial Fund for our orphans.
Please pray for my travel May 1-3 to Tenwek. Also pray for my quick recovery of operating and thinking skills as I reenter the operating room after a 2.5 year absence. Maybe you should pray for the patients. Amy will come on June 7 to help at the hospital; she will bring my oldest grandson, Nathan, with her. We all return together on June 30.
Please continue to pray for our family. All of us miss Marty and feel it in different ways and at different times. Selling the family home of 32 years has also produced emotions and grief again. God has comforted us all through this process as well, but it is still difficult at times.
God’s long range plans for me are still a mystery but will be revealed in His time. I hope to clarify if I will be able to serve at Tenwek following this two-month visit. They may not need another OB doctor for two years after September since others have signed up for that time period. Does God intend for me to serve in Kenya at another hospital where Amy may be serving? Does He want me to continue in medical missions or some other form of missionary service? No answers have come yet, but perhaps it is another case of “You don’t need to know that right now; just trust Me.”
Thank you so much for your prayers and faithful support.
Serving Jesus with you,
Paul, for the Jarretts in transition