A visit from best friends–Caleb and Imani, swimming at the pool, staying at our favorite beach house, enjoying the zoo, spending time with Bibi and Babu, Easter Sunday.
School starts tomorrow….but what a week!
Category: Other Page 100 of 181
Shortly after I was born, my parents became followers of Jesus.
Just four years later, they were at one of those old style Baptist missions conferences. The pastor gave an altar call for those who were called to serve in missions. I’m sure “People Need the Lord” would have been playing, had it been written then.
My parents were convicted and went forward.
My mom especially was terrified. This was way before short-term trips where future missionaries can scope out mission fields and get used to travel before committing their lives to deepest darkest Africa.
My mom says she kept hoping that God would keep them from going. But He did not. Her mother–my grandmother–was so furious that she even consulted a lawyer to see about getting the grandchildren taken away from them. For our entire first term, my grandmother did not write to us even one time.
I had just turned six years old when we left. My dad left a lucrative position as a chief pharmacist for Kaiser, to train nationals at a small mission hospital. My mom says she cried every night for the first six months. But I had no idea. To me, she was still my happy and energetic mom. And I loved Liberia.
My parents were faithful and they persevered. Two years turned into six and Liberia became our home. I spend the bulk of my childhood under the palm trees.
And they gave their daughter the best gifts they could have: a love for Jesus, a passion for missions, and the most amazing childhood a kid could ask for.
From the time we went back to the States when I was a sophomore in high school, I wanted to go back to Africa. And though God took me through some long years of lessons to get there, He did indeed bring me back.
I am eternally grateful for the parents God gave me.
Even now, their sacrifices continue, because their only grandchildren are 10,000 miles away. Yet from the beginning, despite their heartache, they have given us total support and encouragement.
But that doesn’t take away the pain of separation. So any time we are together is especially sweet. It had been a year since we’ve seen my Mom and two years since we’ve seen my Dad.
So you could say that last week was a great week.
My children wept when they left.
Their legacy goes on.
Last week, HOPAC’s wonderfully creative people created an interactive Easter experience for all the students.
Each part of the Easter Story was a station, and groups of students rotated through the stations, watching, tasting, feeling, and smelling the events from the last week of Jesus’ life.
HOPAC at its best. To God be the Glory.
I know, it’s been a week since I’ve written. Sorry, I don’t want to make you wait that long. Because I’m afraid you’ll stop coming back.
The car is getting serviced, so we are stuck at home. It’s raining, which allows for blessed breeze. We enjoy it while we can, knowing that as soon as the sun comes out, so will the humidity. Esta and I just finished cleaning the oven. It doesn’t look much different, considering it is 10 years old. But my old lady oven keeps on baking my bread perfectly, so I can’t justify replacing her.
Mama Raymond is here to do the girls’ hair today. Dora is on, Lily is sitting patiently, and Mama Raymond just took a break to pull an enormous breast out of her shirt and feed her baby. No one in this house blinks an eyelash at that.
Pretzel rolls are rising on the counter. Josiah is outside with Paul, our gardener, who is roaring him around the yard in the wheelbarrow in the rain. I just wrote an article for the HOPAC newsletter on how if we want our kids to unplug from media, then maybe we as parents need to do so as well. And now I am on my laptop, blogging. Ha.
I have lots of posts in my head, but they are all frivilous and will probably go in the “Interesting and Amusing in My Daily Life” category. But my camera is broken (a new one is coming) and I am afraid of using Gil’s big ol’ honkin’ one.
Plus, I just don’t feel very frivilous right now. It’s been a hard week.
You know those weeks? It’s not like anything tragic happened; just a whole lot of little sorrows and frustrations and hurts that build up until they spill over all at once and you become a blubbering mess. I think I shocked my poor husband, because I am only very rarely like that.
But this Mommy thing is hard, you know? And you know that it requires sacrifice, but sometimes it seems like you can’t give away anything else. And then you find that you do it anyway. And you are tired of feeling guilty and tired of picking up one more toy and just tired.
And sometimes, I’m tired of Africa too. But here I am.
But today is a new day and God’s grace is always sufficient and Heaven will be much, much better. Pretzel rolls really help too.
The position has been filled.
That’s what the email said from our human resources team.
The position.
Gil’s position.
Our position.
Has been filled.
I should be happy, I guess. This is what we have prayed for. When we told HOPAC that next year would be our last, we prayed that God would bring a replacement soon enough to overlap with us for at least a few months. And so this new chaplain is scheduled to arrive next January. Answered prayer.
And I should be happy, I guess, because we read this guy’s resume and Gil participated in the Skype interview and we like him. Also answered prayer.
But instead, I cried when I read it. Because it forces me to face the reality that in 18 months,
We Are Leaving.
This place that has been all our thoughts and all our prayers and our life and breath and sweat for 10 years, will be over. And in a few years, it will be a distant memory.
Hopefully, hopefully, not too distant, because our plan is to join a team in Dar that is training local pastors. Which would mean that our kids will go to HOPAC and I will be a HOPAC mom who volunteers in the library and is the room mom and brings in treats on Fridays.
It won’t be the same, of course, because right now our whole life is this place and we get to make decisions and give our opinions and build the foundations. We know the names of almost every student and have watched them grow from 5 to 15.
But the future looms large and is uncertain. And I don’t like uncertain and I don’t like change.
And I love this school with my very soul.
But it is time; Gil and I both know it. And so we listen.
6th grade, 2002
