Transition

The cicadas sing their familiar melancholic tune, stirring my emotions and thoughts with their every note.  What has just happened? I find myself sitting on a dusty and faded old couch on my cracking veranda, sipping strong African coffee with my homemade half-n-half. My aging Ridgeback just sauntered past, moving at a slower pace then years gone by.  Ugandan sounds, songs and smells meet my every sense, telling me, reminding me, that I've leapt across the globe in less then 24 hrs, back to my home of the last decade.

The kids are so alive here, including Kai. His cheesy grins and ultra-light spirit in the day hours were only shadowed by a few days of interrupted sleep.  The boys are climbing, running, playing hard 'til sweat pours from their brows and laughter cracks their lips. Elliana has a renewed love for babies, growing seeds in the dusty soil, and climbing trees. I think the third could stay dead, honestly. :)

Where is my heart in all the mix? Delighted, peaceful, tired, and confused.  In a mere day, we left a year long home assignment to return to life in Uganda. I've been struck again with how life here just takes more time.  This is simply a reality.  There are so many "luxuries" in the US that eliminate extra work, something I forget until back in the throws of daily life. A short list includes things like power (when I want/need it), clean water from all taps/sinks (at least clean enough that parasites are not a concern), hot water for washing dishes/my face/shaving/dirty children, internet access when I want it and fast enough to do what I want with it, a nearby supermarket to pick up forgotten shaving cream, a washing machine for a baby blanket gone sour, etc. etc. etc.  I won't even mention things like triple washed spinach, and new bags of rice that rarely EVER carry rocks and bugs..

But, lest these quiet moments among the dusty cushions focus only on the losses, there are many great gains I am delighted to experience. Like relationships and faces we've missed for more the 365 long days. Our children, fully alive.  Clinging to Him alone in our sadness and frustrations. African worship. African sunsets. Being where relationship is far more important then getting the job done. Big chubby brown babies that smile into my heart.  Uncle Jonnes. Seeing myself and my children get so caught up in being outside that media is an after-thought.  My husband, up at 4:30 today, has already lived the day forwards and backwards by the time I wake.  He's seeing through new eyes this morning (as the jet lag releases the fog on his brain). He is also fully alive. Excited. Expectant. Do the gains far outweigh the losses? Yes, undoubtedly.

A good friend handed this verse to me before we left and I've found myself meditating on it amid the chasm of sadness I have felt in all the good-byes to both of our families:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Eph 3:20-21

God is with us.  Emmanuel. I know He has more in store for us then we can imagine.
I choose to begin this next term with expectation. In Eucharisteo. With joy.

What did God assure my heart that this was the year of?
                Shalom. 

Cling to the Rock, Laura Beth, walk in the Spirit where you with find life and peace. 
In the midst of the world-change, we continue to choose to trust him with our hearts and our lives, no matter the loss.  He counts the cost and knows.  Selah.