This is what it is all about: Holy Week and Easter! Holy (Maundy) Thursday we received Christ’s Body and Blood for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. Friday, Good Friday, Christ was crucified and laid in a grave. For us, he took on our sins. Sunday we were blessed to be able to attend our home church for a joyous Easter service. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

For a variety of reasons, when John retired, we moved from Las Vegas, where the Air Force had stationed us, to Cheyenne. But while it is close to the Denver area, it’s still a substantial drive for us to attend our home church in Aurora. This past Sunday we left Cheyenne while it was still dark and watched the sun rise as we drove two hours south to church. It’s not an easy thing to manage with five children. But it was a good drive. It was Easter Sunday and we all were so very excited to go to church to hear once again that He is risen, He isn’t in that tomb, He isn’t on the cross. And He did it all for us!

Life in the support-building phase of missionary work is constant upheaval and uncertainty. It takes its toll on all of us. So many things are not what they’ve always been. Every time we talk to someone we get asked when we’re leaving. Because we’ve been in transition for nine months now, we have so many people who just think of us as already gone because dragging out good byes is strenuous. Every time we talk about packing up some things, the little kids run to their toys and pack up their carry on bags for the flight, and it usually takes a day to convince them that, no, we’re not leaving yet.

We don’t tell you this to garner sympathy, we tell this because as we drove to church on Sunday we were reminded that Easter (and all that follows) is why we’re doing all this. Jesus took all our sins, all our impatience, all our arrogance, all our laziness on himself on Good Friday. He died a horrible death, for us. He rose again, on Easter Sunday for us, because He loves us, all of us humans. And that’s why we do all this craziness of a different church every Sunday, driving back and forth across the country, living out of boxes. We, the Wolf Pack, have been appointed by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to serve at tables in Africa to aid the pastors who are called to teach and preach this Gospel to those who need it there. In our vocations as Project Manager and his family we can serve our neighbors as God has laid out for us. Certainly we intend to have fun and enjoy our time and work in Africa. This Easter season we are again reminded that the real joy is in His death and resurrection for us, for the forgiveness of our sins, not in our stuff or our routines or “normal life.” Our joy is in Him, for us. And thanks be to God for that! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

We continue to thank God for the bountiful love, prayers and support we have received from the many Saints in Christ we have met in our visits these last nine months. Please continue to pray for us, that we would get a green light soon so that we can go to language training and then finally settle into a home. Pray also that we could continue to remember His death and resurrection for us for the forgiveness of our sins and not get caught up in the minutiae of the work of moving across the globe but rest in the knowledge of His love for us.

John Wolf is the Africa Region Project Manager for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. He and his family, with the support of LCMS churches like Saint John’s, are serving in Kenya. Please keep them in your prayers! We encourage you to follow their family blog, hereiamsendmesendme.blogspot.com, which is also where you can sign up to their mailing list and make donations.