As I write this, it's 72 degrees out on a sunny June day, after two or three days of thunderstorms that caused the temperatures to plummet from 80 degrees to 65 degrees. Such strange weather for June. Ava is currently painting three pictures with watercolors while Darcy naps in her dark, cool room under a spinning ceiling fan, and Greg crashed from exhaustion on our bed three hours ago and is still sleeping. It's 2pm and I am savoring the quiet and semi-solitude. Ava just braided my hair, a new skill I taught her recently, and covered my lips neon pink (!) lip gloss that our babysitter gave her.
We just came off a busy two weeks of training two leaders from another country. They were long days, starting around 9:30 and ending around 6pm except one of us ran home around 4:30 to pick up Ava from preschool and to relieve the babysitter, rushing to cook dinner, bathe the girls, and put them to bed. Most days, it was me and I felt like a single mother with a 9-to-5 job, shifting from work mode to home/family mode. I also had to cram in a quick trip to the grocery store nearly everyday to replenish supplies for the baby-sitter and the girls' lunches and snacks, not to mention picking up ingredients for dinner that night. Somehow, laundry got done. It was a blur. Poor Greg did a lot of running to-and-fro for two weeks and that was what made him crash on the bed this afternoon.
It was a great and productive training so we hope that we will be able to see fruit from their efforts as they apply the new "tools" that we gave them. We won't see the leaders that we trained until next spring but hope to Skype with them often until then, to provide support and answers. Technology is a great boon.
Just before training started, we finally finished language study. Finally. We went straight from wrapping it up to training and training just finished yesterday so the fact that we finished language study hasn't sunken in yet.
We have one more month left until we go stateside. I'm so glad that all of our work is done and we can focus on preparations for our trip stateside. A lot of the preparations have to do with getting medical clearance, readying the apartment for a short-term student who will house-sit and work with our co-workers, preparing presentations for stateside, packing, and tying up any loose ends. Hopefully, it will be a relaxing month, instead of fraught with stress and urgency.
As our three-year term drew to a close, I reflected on our term off and on. These three years were full of new experiences, challenges, struggles, frustrations, joys, and tremendous personal/spiritual growth. I think that sums up our term nicely without me waxing long and eloquent about specifics which would surely bore you.
Now, I look ahead to resting stateside for 5-6 months. I'm a bit apprehensive because I remember what it was like to return to the States after 2 years of being away. I remember the struggle to adapt and get used to America again. It was more difficult than I'd expected but I think this time around, I won't be as surprised and may have an easier time of it. I mostly worry about the girls, what the transition will look like for them. Ava doesn't remember the U.S. and Darcy is completely unfamiliar with it.
On a more positive note, I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends, spending time with them, experiencing favorite things and places again. I look forward to fresh Florida seafood, Florida beaches, pork BBQ, shopping for several things in one store (hello, Target!), traffic that is logical and orderly, things that make sense, and some of the conveniences of America. I look forward to enjoying my kids without the pressure of work.
Most of all, I look forward to being spiritually renewed. I hope and pray for that. As we rest, I hope to remember the Father's call on our lives, to remember our vision, to be encouraged and energized. We are weary, not of living overseas, but weary in spirit. We have fed ourselves for so long and I look forward to being fed for a change.
See you all soon.
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