Goodbye Hawaii, Hello Mainland

This is a tentative map of our travels while on the mainland.  We'll also be making a stop in Toronto too. 

We're back on the mainland now... here's some thoughts that I had before I left Hawaii...

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I'm sitting on the floor with most of our earthly possessions in luggage. It isn't the first time and most likely it won't be the last. When you stop packing, and are quiet amidst the empty room, that is when you start to think, and emotions flood your heart.  The rain is quietly hitting the pavement outside of the 4th room we've have called home in the past ten months. We have nothing really tangible or concrete to show for this time, just new friendships, and memories.  And our real inheritance, what we worked for, 12 students who are going all over the world, with their lives changed after studying the entire bible for 9 months.  We were blessed to play a role in facilitating that.  

Walking with this group of people, we experienced every emotion with them, day in and day out. We lived a lifetime with these people in 9 months. And in hours we board a plane. Back half way across the world to our "home."  But while home is familiar, it also seems so foreign.

My heart is full. I can tell my brain is too, I have called people by their wrong names more than a few times this week.   Rest will be nice a change of scenery, the open road always has a way to let your mind make sense of things and declutter.  We will visit old friends and family people that we have a history with.  There is a safety in friends and family with a history, people that knew who we were and are gracious enough to listen and try and understand who we are becoming. Gracious enough to believe in us, and what we have given our lives to. Gracious enough to try and grasp any glimpse of what our lives now look like.  

The future? We have a plan for the future, but we know that our best laid plans aren't always the Lords.  So we set our sights forward, but we're ready to have our trajectory changed, to get new orders, to go wherever and do whatever He says. All in hopes of hearing, well done good and faithful servant when we enter through those gates, to our real home. 

We have poured out, and served at times in seemingly thankless things, but somehow we feel we are on the right track, following in the steps of the One who gave it all.  The one who deserved the most honor, the most respect, but yet came into the world and served mankind whom He created.  

Yet we know nothing of pain and suffering, only inconvenience and a bruised pride. We have grown. And we have loved, and been loved. And somewhere, somehow we will do something similar, all again, even though after ten months this feels like this is the norm and it should simply continue. I'm not sure there is a norm in kingdom living. 

This is the life of the modern missionary.  It's exciting and at times, absolutely terrifying.

Engage:  What is God highlighting to you this Christmas season?  Let us know in the comments.