“Where did last week
go? Where did last month go? Where has the last four months gone?” When I moved overseas, I figured that my life
would be so much simpler and at a much slower pace. I thought that I would have time to stop and
smell the roses everyday with my cup of coffee in my hand. But the longer I’m here, the more unrealistic
this expectation becomes.
While in some ways,
life is simpler. When I got to the
grocery store, I only have to make the decision, “Do I want it or not.” I don’t have to worry about brands because
there is only one brand available. Most
evenings find us home enjoying supper around the table as a family. Yet because life here is challenging and take
so much more emotional, mental, and physical energy than living many places, by
the time one gets to the end of the day we are just exhausted. There is always more work to do than can be
done. So one must constantly choose
which need you will help with at that moment.
Even after 5 ½ years of living here, cultural challenges are still a
part of our lives. Then there is the
inability to plan because you can’t know for sure that you will have electric
or water that day. It also feels like we
are saying good-bye to friends, which takes a lot of emotional energy. In the last three months alone, we have said
good-bye to 8 families, some will hopefully be returning and other are moving
away.
· The first day after many months of hearing the MAF planes back in the air as Conrad had been able to finally get the needed documents.
· I see God giving me strength to follow a dream (a blog to come)
· I was able to finish on time every assignment for the on-line classes I was taking to keep my teaching degree current. Even with the many power and internet outages, every assignment was able to be submitted in time. That was completely a God thing.
· I see God going before as we renewed our residence visas. Allowing the process to go quicker than normal so we could still make our flight to South Africa for a time of rest and help with my back pain.
· I see God orchestrating a very special time in South Africa for a period of rest and relaxing due to back issues for me. I was able to find some ways to help with the back problems here in Mozambique on my own and have been in considerably less pain. Praise the Lord!
· I see God providing visas for our newest team members with hours to spare. Their Mozambique visas arrived on Thursday to coworkers going to Portugal for language training. The visas for Portugal arrived on Friday and the coworkers left on Saturday. Hand delivering the Mozambique visas on Sunday and our new coworkers flying out on Monday arriving here in Mozambique on Tuesday. I have no doubt that God’s hand was orchestrating this.
· I see God giving us strength to say Good-bye even though it’s hard.
· I see “Hellos” as we welcomed new coworkers to Mozambique for the first time.
· I see God orchestrating everything so that everyone was able to make it to the MAF family conference. There were a number of travel challenges but God worked in each case and we had a very special time together as the MAF teams from Lesotho and Mozambique. Conrad and I were in charge of running the conference this year and God also gave us the strength to be able to enjoy the conference even with the added responsibility.
· I see “Welcome backs” as our Program Manger family returned from furlough to take over the running of the program for us.
· I see tears and laughter as we navigate this life here with friends and our family.
· Most of all I see a God who is constantly walking with us, giving us the strength for each day, caring deeply about our lives, and speaking wisdom into our heart. A God who has the strength to carry our cares and our concerns.
