A New House

This beautiful place that we’ve called home for almost a year, soon won’t be ours anymore. The mission has sold this lot to a university. I’m sad for several reasons. Perhaps the biggest thing that saddens me is the fact that the mission decided to sell this lot because there aren’t enough missionaries here anymore that it’s worth keeping it. Did you see what I just wrote? This mission guesthouse was built 75 years ago as a place for missionaries to stay when they came to the city to do business. The old timers talk of the days when there were so many missionaries staying here that sometimes they had to put up tents in the yard to accommodate everyone. I can’t even imagine! Now this mission (World Gospel Mission) has no missionaries that stay here anymore. The last of their on-the-field missionaries have retired. That’s what has happened. All the older missionaries have retired and there are no younger people to take their places. This is what breaks my heart. I can’t speak for world wide missions but South American missions have all but died out. Yes, there are still a few workers faithfully staying on but there aren’t many of them. It seems to me like many in my generation have lost the vision for foreign missions. I know the focus for missions has shifted more toward the Middle Eastern countries instead of the South American countries. That’s okay. But even there how many people do you know who are willing to give their lives for foreign mission work? Haven’t we all just gotten too lazy and comfortable where we are?

I say this in tears because we will become one of the statistics soon too. We are here temporarily right now. We want to move back to the States as soon as Alex’s adoption paperwork comes through. Sometimes that troubles me. The whole us moving back to the States thing. Many people have told us that we’ve been gone long enough. It’s time to move back. But I don’t feel that way. There’s a side of me that is terribly ready to move back. I’m tired of loneliness and being so far away from my family. I’m tired of pouring myself out for other people often getting nothing in return. I’m tired of life being so hard and difficult. I want an easier life. I want to be with my family. I want to have American friends again.

But the other side of me resists the idea of moving back. It’s okay to live a hard life. It’s okay to be lonely. It’s okay to give until there’s nothing left to give. It’s okay to be thousands of miles away from my family. That’s what Christianity is all about. That’s what it feels like to live out the great commission. This is what I want to be doing. I don’t want to move back to the States. I want to be faithful here. I want to be a missionary in a foreign land. I want to do my part to make sure foreign missions don’t die out. But… the truth is our mission here has died out. There is no longer a place for us in the mission we came here to work in. We were willing to keep gritting our teeth and trying to make it work. But God pulled us out. (If you question that let me know and I’ll tell you that story).

In some ways it feels like going back to the States is defeat. We’ve been here for 10 years and what do we have to show for it? Failure. Heartbreak. Disappointments. But you know what? That’s okay. Do you know why? Because we were faithful. God called us to the work here. He didn’t ask us to make a name for ourselves or make something to show for. He simply called us to come and give our all for HIS work here. His work. Not our work. And we were faithful in obeying Him. We gave our all for His work. Was it worth it? All the sweat, tears, sacrifices, loneliness… Yes. A heart resounding yes. Even if people think we were a failure because we’ve nothing to show for? Yes, still worth it. There is such a deep peace because we did what God called us to do. We gave our all. The results aren’t up to us because it’s not our work. God sees the results. Remember? It is His work.

Okay, that was a long speel I wasn’t planning to write when I started. What I was going to say is that we need to be out of this house by the end of the year. So in about 22 days. We have no idea where we’re moving to next. Yep. Don’t have anything lined up yet except for some houses to look at. The most surprising thing to me is that I’m not freaking out. I’m the organized like-to-have-my-things-all-planned out type. Normally this would be very nerve wracking for me. But it’s not. I totally trust God. He’s always provided and cared for us. He’s never let us set. So I know He’ll do the same in this situation too. Yes, we’re fervently looking for a place (our part) but we’re also totally trusting God (also our part) to provide for us exactly what He knows is best and what we need (His part).

I’ve decided to look at this as an adventure. It’ll make it more fun that way. It’ll be especially challenging though because it will be a temporary place. We hope once Alex’s adoption is complete we can make our big move to the States. I’m really hoping that even though it’ll be a temporary place we can make it feel like home. No one likes the feeling of living in a temporary place and so I want to make it as homey as I can for my family. Any advice you might have on making a temporary place feel like home would be welcome.

Especially thinking of our next place being so temporary (and even this place too) has got me feeling a lot like a true pilgrim. We all long for a place to just settle down in and live at the rest of our lives. But, moving so many times isn’t all bad either. At least it makes me long for my permanent heavenly home and it serves as a good reminder that we are suppose to be pilgrims here making this our temporary dwelling place.

The other thing that this has caused me to realize is that a house is not really home. Home isn’t a place. It’s the feeling I have when I’m with my husband and children. That’s home. We like to make our houses our home. That’s good. They should be. But home to me is more than just a house. It’s my family. When I’m with them then I am home no matter where I am physically.