Thursday, February 21, 2013

This Odd World in Which We Live

In less than 24 hours, we hit the road, with a direct route back to the Midwest!  As I began to pack up today, I had to stop and just try to isolate the emotions I am feeling.

We are so excited to go home and we get to see family and friends starting on Saturday night!  This is exactly how I anticipated my feelings. If only they stopped there. Underneath those, I feel sad. Overall, I am thankful to feel sad because as we have learned here, sadness at leaving only comes if you have loved and been loved. In five weeks, this weird place where we don’t have wifi in our rooms and have to eat all of food through a cafeteria lunch line, actually started to feel like…home.

And for that, praise God. It gives me hope, hope that God can make any place begin to feel like home. Granted, there was not a lot of culture shock here and we all thrive in community, still, I rejoice.

We press on, taking the “yucks” with the “yays”, dragging our girls through another goodbye. More friends came in the last two weeks and they probably won’t ever see again, going to Mali, India and Italy.

We are so glad to be going home to be with our people, but we will ache and miss our new people. A fact of life for every change I guess. Today, when Little A heard we were leaving she said, “Mama, my body doesn’t want to change”.

Some things we will miss.

Always someone to play with…

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Little A finally learned to jump off things. A chunk of every day was spent jumping off this mantle.

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Talking to Jess while swinging kiddos

MTI Jess and Matt's 022 

Playmates to have indoor “sledding” parties on lunch trays.

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Walking into our room to grab something and entering to see 6 kids (The Littles not included) happily playing in our room.

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(Okay, couldn’t handle that every day!)

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Colorado’s beauty, a serendipitous mix of snow and sunshine.

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Late night conversation with friends that feel like family.

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I did not know how much it would cost to let myself feel the sadness. When I know this is a fraction of what we will feel as we fly across the ocean to Ethiopia, I want to curl into the fetal position and rock back and forth.

In all of this, I have joy. I am excited about our future.

Another chapter complete. We are so much richer through this. Thank you for all your love, encouragement and support.

Can’t wait to see you!

6 comments:

Amber said...

Praying for you Amy . . .you have done such a great job of sharing the emotions along the journey. So praying God holds you close through another goodbye and that the time ahead that waits you is so sweet.

sarah.flyingkites said...

ok I feel like bawling. Thanks for sharing this - it is just SO helpful to all of us stateside people to understand just a fraction of what you are/will be going through.

Anonymous said...

Re-Entry... Thanks for this very real post. Praying for you guys!!

Klint

Anonymous said...

Thnaks for sharing so beautifully about your feelings through all this. Safe travels and we can hardly wait to see all of you! Tell Adia that Nana and Papa wants her to force her body to make one more change! We love you, Mom & Dad

Jess said...

When you guys left on Sunday evening, an ache stayed with me all night. I am so grateful for the time we had with you, but I was left thinking, "Wait! I still have more questions, more stories, more things I want to hash out!" And then my spirit remembered that we will have forever together, and even when time here goes too fast, there will come a day when it won't. Love you guys and praying for safe travels in this crazy weather.

Anonymous said...

Amy,
Safe travels to your family!! Been following you as you were in Colorado... beautiful state, beautiful people, beautiful hearts...just remember all those heartaches come with alot of awesome memories and joy in knowing God's people around the world.Bless you for sharing straight from the heart!! Im not surprised it pulls at your heart, as I remember back in the good ole days when we went to Juarez with you, it was so hard for you to say goodbye to the children(as it was for us), but deep down inside I knew you had a very special place in your heart for the orphans. Little did I know how right I was!:) You made it through the goodbyes and a hundreds more....God will give you grace in the perfect timing and you wont need to curl in a fetal position.:) But if you do, God will rock you and we will continue praying and staying in touch as you will never be far from our hearts and thoughts.:) Praying for you as you say your goodbyes(once again)...looking forward to seeing you guys soon!!!
Blessings~ Heidi C.