It's that time again.....

When you say "7, almost 8 months" it sounds like a while. But wow! Here we are, down to the last 48 hours, and it felt like it wasn't all that much time at all. Definitely not enough to completely spend as much time with everyone that we'd want to. And now it's time to say even more goodbyes. I mean, I feel like I've been saying goodbye to people the whole time we've been home: family we knew we wouldn't see again, friends we were privileged to get to spend some time with, dear church families. And it's awful to see dear friends and have to leave them with the "maybe in 4-ish years we'll be together again." How heart-rending is that. I know the goodbyes have taken a toll on my kids. They hate them. If they have seemed dis-interested or even slightly rude when we've been saying goodbye to you, it's just because they've calloused themselves against having their hearts broken by saying goodbye yet again. But we are in the business of Goodbyes. Every year, even if we are still in PNG, good friends leave for their furloughs and are gone for a year. Or if we're really lucky, we'll leave for a 7 month furlough, and just as we get back, dear friends depart, so it ends up being almost 2 years in between seeing friends, who are basically family. Even better/harder is the leaving and saying good bye to family for 4-ish years. That's a long time. We'll probably miss out on future cousins being born, likely the last surviving grandparent's death. Hopefully nothing will happen to our parents in the next 4 years, but it's always a possibility. How do you say goodbye when you don't know for sure that you'll ever see someone again here on earth?

We're constantly asked: "Are you excited about going back to PNG?" Well, the answer for me is always "Yes and No". I mean, we love it there. It definitely becomes more and more our home the longer we spend there. We have dear friends who have become our family. We have our home in Ukarumpa which we all look forward to getting back to. But it is hard to be so far from family, especially for holidays and various other special occasions. I'll miss having a clothes dryer. There's nothing like doing laundry at any time of the day or night and having it be dry an hour later!!! Not a day or two of line drying! There's no mud here... or at least not much that you have to trek thru every day to go anywhere. And when you go to the grocery store, you can always find anything you ever needed. It will never be out of the main ingredient for 6 months at a time! And if I'm sick, or tired, or had a crazy day, I can't just pop out and grab a pizza. =( So yeah, I will really miss stuff like that. But I love the community and slower pace of life in Ukarumpa. I love my dear friends, and having our own place. So yeah, I am excited to go back.

Now, if I could just go to sleep and wake up over there, and skip the 20 hours of flying time!