We are Home

Home… the word means something different to each person. Our home is the house we live in Kandiyohi, but I still consider the farm home as well. For the last 3 weeks I have called MTI in Colorado home. Eventually our home will be in the bush of Zambia, Africa. The last 3 weeks have been really good and really hard. It has been draining and exciting. The days sometimes went by very slow yet the weeks went by very fast. We live in paradox- that is our reality. Right now we love and hate pretty much everything about our lives. It is a strange place to be but it is good to know that 1) it is okay and 2) it is actually normal. Now that we are home the reality has set in that we have a ton of stuff to get done in the next month. Right now we are all tired and a little crabby. The last 3 days have been very stressful. We finished packing and loading up Friday morning. We finished saying all our goodbyes (oh yeah, I woke up with a headache so the day did not start off the way I was hoping) and got on the road about 12:30. It was also snowing. The drive that should have taken 4 hours took 6 1/2. The number of vehicles in the ditch was too many to count. We did see 3 rollovers, 3 multiple car accidents, and one accident that we never got to actually see because the interstate was closed and traffic was parked for miles. We got off and took a much less traveled road and got around and kept going. By the time we got to North Platte I had muscle spasms in my neck, back, legs and arms. I had driven so long, so tense that I could not relax. Saturday morning we didn’t get going until 9:30 and we took a little less traveled route. It was a very scenic road across southern South Dakota. We got home about 7:30 pm, so 10 hours on the road. Then get the van unloaded and start getting stuff put away (or I should say in Kel’s case get everything put away). Got everyone to bed, even though the kids were not all that tired. We had church in the morning. That was one of the reasons we needed to get back. Our Sunday school class was planning on presenting us with the “shower” gifts they had for us. We will definitely be clean!! 3 huge boxes of toilet paper, 50 toothbrushes and about 50 bars of soap were included with the pillows, sheets, tire repair kit, music cd’s, gift cards, dishes, and more. (Yes, I will update our list soon) What a pure blessing to have a community of believers to come around us and bless us this way. It may seem a little extreme to have that amount of things (I didn’t ask for those numbers, that’s just what people happened to give), but we are a family of eight, and these will all be things we will not have to buy once in Zambia (at least for quite awhile!) We would like to thank you for your prayers over the last 3 weeks. We saw our Father answer. It was a privilege and an honor to go through the SPLICE program at MTI. We know we will be using what we learned long before we get to the field. In closing I would just ask to continue to keep us in your prayers.