Home

Well, we landed on US soil about 1 month ago. Thank you to all who prayed! We literally were held up & protected by the Lord through those prayers. No one else in our family got sick (including me, which was a miracle!), Tom recovered and was able to say proper farewells to those he had worked with at the hospital, and we survived a rather uneventful 26ish hours of travel back to America with our family of 8. It’s been wonderful to reunite with family and friends and our church. It’s also been quite an adjustment, with some very real culture shock and many emotional ups & downs. This has brought me to doing a lot of thinking about home. What is home? Where is home? Why do I often long for home?

For some of you more practical people who are asking…yes, we are pursuing and following God’s leading to go back to Kenya. We think that the work He has for us there is not yet done. We are in the process of applying with World Gospel Mission, which would be our long-term sending organization. If the Lord allows, we hope to sign on with WGM and go back to serve a 2 year term at Tenwek sometime next year.

It very much felt like returning home when we pulled into our driveway 4 weeks ago. We were so thankful to be able to walk into our own house and sleep in our familiar and comfortable beds…and to take a shower with some real water pressure again!! But we also now feel a void being away from Kenya. Life there became familiar in so many ways. As the faces of many run through my mind on any given day, I sometimes feel an ache for the loss of connection there. I still often look at the clock and think, what time is it in Kenya? There are also some very real unknowns in our future. Where will our home be a year from now? Or a few years? Truly, only God knows. Most people go looking for a house, finding the perfect things that will fit their family, and their own preferences. For us, though, this journey has become one of just trusting that God has a physical home for us wherever He wants us to be on this earth. I know the reality is that it might not end up always being exactly what I hope, or even the most comfortable place in the world. I am being stretched more and more in this and many other things every day.

I’m realizing that this burden of having 2 homes, or not really knowing where our earthly home is, can actually be a blessing. It makes me long for my true home, our eternal home, where I won’t worry about a comfortable pillow or good water pressure or decorations that make it feel “homey.” Christ is really the one who makes our home. Paul said this in 2 Corinthians. While he was talking about being at home in our physical bodies, I think it applies to that sense of home we all can have when we are in a place where we feel we belong. “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens…while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:1,6)

Maybe it comes down to making the best of whatever “home” God has placed us in on this earth. Serving Him, loving the people around us, sharing the Hope that we have. In my somewhat high-strung human nature, I am learning a lot about being content and at peace wherever I am. One thing that is beautiful about the Christian Kenyans we served with is that they always seem to be at peace. They are rarely in a hurry. They place relationship & fellowship above time. They approach God with a true sense of humility and worship, bathing everything in prayer and trust. And they almost never seem to worry. I am learning a lot from that. Maybe we all can.

” For we walk by faith, not by sight…So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please God.” 2 Corinthians 5:7-9