Home is Where the Heart is…..

"HOME"…..it's a concept that many missionaries struggle with, especially if you've moved several times during your missionary career.  MK's, and even missionaries, laugh about not knowing how to answer a normal, small talk question like, "Where are you from?"  Where am I from?  I'm a farm girl from Iowa, but I haven't lived in Iowa since I graduated from high school.  I haven't lived long-term in the United States for over 20 years now.  

As a family, we've laughed at how easily we call wherever we're going to be sleeping that night, "home".  Be it a hotel, a friends house, our house where we're living in Africa…….if we're going to sleep there, we just call it "home".  Obviously HOME-HOME (somehow when you say it twice it signifies a stronger connection) would be where our own beds and pillows are, but there is still a sense of non-permanence even there.  As an American living in Africa, I always know that I'm a foreigner.  No matter how comfortable I am here, no matter how well I speak the language, I do stand out.  I can't deny the fact that I am here on a visa, I'm not from Africa.  

As a mother, just being together, the five of us, feels like home.  But now, even that concept is being challenged.  I have my home in Kinshasa and I love it.  But two of my kids are in the US.  My heart is constantly torn.  I miss Ben and Abby…….after several months, my heart hurts, wanting to see them.  But I don't want to leave Emily in order to do that.  When I'm here with Emmy I love it, but then Pat travels and I miss him - and I also miss the other two!!  My heart is confused!!

Last January we were getting ready to come back to Congo after a 6 month mini-furlough.  A friend of mine said "I bet you just can't wait to get back there".  I didn't know how to answer.  Kinshasa is not really the type of place that people "can't wait" to get to in the first place.  Don't get me wrong - I am very content here, I am happy to be in God's will, I love the people and the ministry - but let's be honest, it's not one of the easiest places to live and we don't have people coming here for holiday!  But what was really running through my mind was the reality that, while leaving to come back to Africa, I was also leaving Ben and Abby.  That was the first time I'd left Abby in the US, the first time we'd gone to Africa minus a daughter.  And even

after 4 years, I still cry when I say goodbye to Ben!  

Every night, when I go to bed, I make sure my phone is by my bed.  We don't have landlines here, only cell phones.  Because of  having kids in another country, I always want to be accessible to them - in case of an emergency I need to be able to hear my phone at all times, even during the night.  So when we're all together, it's very significant to me that I don't really care where my phone is when I go to bed.  It's a symbol of togetherness…..not having my phone on the bedside stand.  

Emily is now a senior in high school and empty nest is looming.  It's a period of life that you hear a lot of people talk about.  Books are written on the subject.  It looms even larger when there's an ocean between us and our kids.  Ben is preparing to go to a sensitive country in East Africa, Abigail and Emily will be in university in the U.S., Pat and I will be in Central Africa.  We'll be spread across 3 countries, trying to organize Skype calls around various time zones.  

I love Hebrews chapter 11 where it talks about Abraham living in tents - living as a foreigner in a distant land because he knew this was not his home.  HOME-HOME……it's not down here folks!