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Soon after Thanksgiving we left Iquitos and spent a few days in Lima. Then on December 1 we flew to the United States for the first time in over two years. Some of our first comments after seeing things through new eyes … It takes so long to get anywhere! The houses are huge! Everything is so pretty and so clean! We enjoyed spending a lot of quality time with family and friends and allowed ourselves to put on a few extra pounds due to delicacies like Chick-Fil-A, Dr Pepper, Tex-Mex, home-cookin’, and of course (this one’s for my father-in-law) fried okra! We were able to visit several different churches and see many of you. In some ways it was as though nothing had changed, but there we were back in the states with TWO children. New Year’s Eve weekend we drove with Jake’s family to Amarillo to see his great-grandparents. At this time Hannah finally started to ask, “When are we going back to my house?” She was ready. Of course she loved all the attention and many new toys, but she was ready to be in her home. I began to realize that the longer we live outside of the United States, what Jake and I consider home, what we consider more comfortable, more familiar, will be more foreign to our girls. The familiar for them includes riding in a moto taxi, or knowing that we must speak Spanish when the neighbors come to play. They don’t seem to notice the smell of trash on the side of the road or the lack of options at the grocery store. It is all they know. I too often try to reconcile the world I grew up in and the world I now live in. But I have to give up at the impossible and simply admit, somehow they coexist. When we decided to obey God’s call to come and live in Peru we didn’t know exactly how long we would be here. And in many ways we still don’t. Jake often says, “We just do the last thing we know God told us to do.” After being in Iquitos a year I realize that so many of my fears and expectations of missionary life were exaggerated. Both the bad and the good. Things have not been as scary as I anticipated. But on the other hand I’ve asked myself, “Have I truly demonstrated the faith that so many believe me to have? Have I lived with no regrets?” As I look back on the first two years of our journey I can honestly say that I do have some regrets. I haven’t taken advantage of every opportunity the Lord has sent my way. I haven’t always been courageous and bold in sharing my faith. The end of 2011 will mark the end of our first missionary term. I hope to look back on this year and say that I have no regrets. I desire to embrace everything that the Lord may lead us to do this year. I desire to press on through my still-broken Spanish and use the gifts God has gifted me with to be a witness to others. I humbly ask that you pray for me in this. It will be a busy year, a hard year, and an exciting year!
