Surgery? Seriously?

I found out on Tuesday evening that I need to have a total hysterectomy before returning to Tanzania.

(Groan.)

I was pretty shocked. I cried when Byron picked me up and I told him about it. I wasn't expecting to need major surgery to deal with my issues. That's because I didn't know I had sizable fibroids and a great big cyst in my life.

At this point I'm nervous, annoyed and a little overwhelmed.

I find that I'm struggling, too, with spikes of fear.

Hospitals make me feel sick. I felt faint having a mammogram today. It's weird, I know.

But I also know that I'm thankful for help, incredible technology, advanced medicine, a concerned family and caring friends.

I'm thankful to God for timing and leading and provision.

I'll hand my fear over to him.

Surgery is set for 13 May. Before that, I'll be here and there in Southern California. After that, find me sitting quietly at Mom and Dad's.

Home... What is that Exactly?

During the last 8 months in the States, Heather would sometimes cry and say she wanted to go home. She didn't mean she wanted to go back to Portugal, though she did miss it.

Colin would sometimes question her about it but I knew exactly what she meant. She wanted a room where she could put all her things away. She wanted to pick the color of the walls. But mostly, she wanted a space in which our family felt "at home."

It's 3am and I'm wide awake because California still dictates to me when I should feel wakeful. In this wee hour of the morning, I have been worrying about "home."

We need a house in the next few weeks. We need one sooner than later and it needs to be fairly near to our dear teammates, Peter and Tammy. Complicate that with the fact that they will be leaving the place they live in by the end of November and looking for a new place so the new place will need to be fairly near us, wherever that is. And there is not a vast array of options here.

I open my eyes into the darkness and wonder if God can handle all the details. Will our container of furniture and household goods arrive from Portugal at the right time for moving into the phantom house we haven't found yet? Must I adjust my expectations to fit closer to one house we saw yesterday which I thought was really substandard? Is it ok that I want something that feels pleasant to me? Are we nuts for "jumping into thin air" as my friend Ruth in Belfast called it, hoping that God will catch us by finding us a place and opening the way into this new life before us? Were we wrong to think that's really the only way we could do it?

You would think that after so very many years of experiencing how the Lord watches over our details as we follow him into the adventure, well, you would think I would be an old pro at trusting. You would think.

But I get to this place of thinking I have expended all his favor and grace and detail-watching. I assume He doesn't have time for this anymore.

Of all the things I love about Africa (and there are many I don't love as well) the one I love the most is the way it makes me feel my desperation for the Lord. The housing issue is complicated and challenging, but OH MY WORD, that's nothing compared to the issues of poverty and spiritual need. Just thinking about living here during our last couple of weeks in the States put me in that aware-of-my-desperation state. I would be running errands and find myself muttering prayers under my breath the whole way. Mysterious heart prayers that my spirit churned with. I trusted that the Lord understood them. It felt good to connect in that intimate place where words don't have to be intelligible.

So I have no idea where we'll be unpacking our bags. I long to unpack them, that's true. I can't picture home yet, but I sense I'm getting closer.

I dream about a house but as for home, I think this place under His wing is it.

A Little Fear on Our Way Toward Departure

Oh Seattle! We felt so loved!

It's nice how love produces love. We felt loved and now we think everyone we talked with in Seattle is the greatest :-) Seriously though, we felt really cared about by all the supporters, mission teams and friends that we met with over the last ten days.

Of all the people we told our "Why we're off to Africa" story to, my favorite was a class of thirty 16 year olds I spoke to at my niece's public high school. I asked them what they can buy for $2. They said a candy bar, a cup of coffee, a cheeseburger. They thought they could maybe make it for a couple hours on $2. We talked about the fact that 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day.

I really enjoyed being with that group. It made me happy to be able to tell them about stuff.

Anyway, it won't be long now till we book our tickets for April or May and I suddenly have this weird feeling...

We've been running around raising funds and getting things in order to move and pretty soon we're gonna be there and the dust is gonna settle and you know what? We're going to look around and say "OH MY WORD? WHAT HAVE WE DONE? WHAT ARE WE DOING BACK IN AFRICA??"

I realize it's normal but it can feel a little weird to know something is right and to want it really badly and to be scared to death of it at the same time.