This Wild Journey

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

Posted: August 9, 2017
Under: Family, mission
By: Emily

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The journey

The steadfast love of the Lord is true and real and mighty. I have experienced this in a very real way just the past 48 hours or so. The way He tenderly comforts me in my dashed hopes or expectations. He picks me up in my discouragement and lifts my head. He turns my eyes back to Him, and restores my hope and joy and expectation that He is working and He is indeed in control.

A few days ago we officially began our last week of this part of our journey to Kenya. And while we hope to return to Tenwek in the not too far future, we still have all the feelings and expectations of a transition and good-bye to what we have come to know. People, places, even things that are familiar will soon be distant. Ministry we have poured our hearts and efforts into will change. Well, as soon as we hit that one week point, my idealistic view of how this last week might go was shattered by sickness. Tom got sick first, then 3 of our kids have followed this weekend. And this is not some quick recovery thing. Tom has been in bed for almost 3 days, literally so weak he cannot pick up our toddler. Not to worry, we did have one of the docs here check him out and run labs, and it doesn’t look like anything too serious. They will recover. But still, it has been debilitating. And disappointing. Today we had to miss our last worship service here at our “home church.” Plans we hoped for in connecting with people this week have had to change.

In all this, my emotions have been up and down, but mostly down. Like most other things we go through in life, though, it’s been a journey. And God is showing himself faithful. He is so faithful. He reminded me this morning in Psalm 34 that those who fear him have no lack. We lack nothing. Though many are our afflictions, the LORD delivers us out of them all. He hears our every cry. He is near, He saves, He redeems.

So, we appreciate your prayers for healing, and for this week as we continue to say good bye, pack up our things, and to embark on another kind of journey (24 hours on planes with 6 kids!). But more than that, we ask for your prayers that we would stay strong in the Lord, that we would not give in to any kind of discouragement, and that we would stay faithful to all He has called us to do. As I type this, I pray for you in these things as well!

“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD!” ~Psalm 31:24

Posted: July 2, 2017
Under: Adventure God has us on
By: Emily

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“Finishing” well

It is starting to be a reality that, at least for now, our time here in Kenya will soon be over. We will head back to the States and be so glad to see and spend time with family and friends. But we will also leave behind new friends, unfinished work and ministry, and a country that we’ve grown used to and even learned to love in many ways these past 6 months. It is hard to know how to bring things like this to a close. We would appreciate your prayers for wisdom in how to help the Kenyan families we’ve become close with. Prayers for how to spend our time in these last 3 weeks. Prayer for Tom to be at peace even though he knows there is much to do at the hospital (There is now a nurses strike in Kenya, and it is really affecting Tenwek. Please pray for quick resolution of that!). And how to minister to those the Lord has put on this journey with us. We appreciate prayer also for our upcoming transition, from this to that…from 3rd world to 1st world…from what we do here to what we’ll do there. We want to serve God faithfully wherever we are. We don’t know the exact path He will take us on this next year of our lives, but we do know that we can trust our God to be faithful, constant, and loving. We trust that He knows the future.

So we ask for your prayers. We thank you for your prayers. And we’ll see some of you very soon!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”~Proverbs 3:5-6