Two Years Later: Boarding a Plane

March 11, 2014: We arrived in Oregon

March 11, 2016: Boarding a plane for Kenya

Before we moved from California to Oregon, MANY wise friends told me to be patient and give it about two years until it feels like home.  Well, it's been two years to the day since we arrived in Oregon, and we find ourselves soon boarding a plane for the other side of the world.  Irony?  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  God's plans are higher and better than our own.  And I can restfully say that it really has taken this whole time to call Oregon home.  Hard days.  Growing days.  Good days.  Peaceful days.  Patient days. 

Groceries aisles are familiar.  Faces are familiar.  Roads are familiar.  Green everywhere is familiar. There's something so serene about being known.  And now we travel to a land that once was our familiar home.  

What will it be like?  Will they remember us?  Will the smells of chapati in the kitchen, and the sound of rain against the muddy soil bring it all back?  What will I do when I see those we love so much?  Can I still speak the language?

Janet with her casts

The stories begin to flow...I remember running a mile in the tropical downpour with the mud clinging to my sandals while holding a clucking chicken under my arm (the chicken was humbly given as a gift on a home visit), laughing hysterically the entire time.   I remember taking Janet for her surgeries so she could learn to walk and holding her hand tightly as she smiled through her pain and proclaimed "Mungu ni mwema" (God is good).  I remember crying with Christine and hearing the hammer of the coffin being built for her eight-month-old daughter.   There's something about this place.  Sacred.  Sweet.  Raw.  Humbling.  Contemplative.  Soul-wrenching.  Soul-filling.  Soul-embracing.  Beautiful.   



"Everything is beautiful in its time," the Ecclesiastes author wrote.  So true.  Much life has been lived in the past dozen years, and for me it's been amazing to see the beauty in the timing of tomorrow, March 11th, and the journey that has been and is before us.  Lord, have your way in us.    

Our hut in 2001 being built (where we will once again stay!)

 



Outside our hut with Matt's parents in 2001