Settling and reflecting, part 1

We have now had a few weeks to settle back into life here at home. Many times daily I am still caught up in wondering what is happening at a care point right at that moment, how MuMu is progressing, what adventures our friends have had that day, and what God is doing with all that we saw and learned. Thankfully, we are feeling more peaceful about major lessons we needed to learn and how God has revealed His amazing goodness in our lives. He is so patient to give us bits and pieces of truth about ourselves so that we aren't completely overwhelmed. Because honestly, this trip brought out some hard stuff.

I mentioned previously that one odd factor in the trip was the fact that just before we arrived, the internet went out at the McAdam's home. We weren't concerned and assumed it would be fixed quickly. Apparently not only is it true that this culture isn't usually in a hurry about much at all, there is STILL a problem and their internet isn't working correctly or often. Let me tell you, that was a struggle for us, to not be able to easily communicate with our precious families and friends who wanted to check in on us. We had been so dependent to tell everything we can to our friends. We love keeping people in the loop, and for something as big as this trip, we planned that we would be able to update them frequently on how God was working, what prayer needs there were, and just documenting the adventure in general.

Not being able to easily call home and communicate with our families, when we just knew we'd be able to Skype with them, was really painful. It was a huge lesson for us in trusting God was providing and meeting their needs, when we could not check in with them daily and make sure. Alli and I both hit a breaking point quickly with that, and our obvious struggle in realizing we couldn't care for these loved ones while across the world was one of the most humbling parts of the trip. There was some u-u-u-u-ugly crying and fit pitching on our part, I hate to say. I believe one of us said, "WHY won't He make the internet work? He could! Why can we not talk to and see our families?!"

Looking back, even a couple days into the trip, we had better perspective and could see how we were having to focus on the tasks at hand, and really just relinquish that desire to have some pseudo-control of our kids and husbands, or at least over conversing with them. That had to be part of God's timing, to narrow our gaze to Swaziland, and to not forget our families, but truly, let that worry go. They survived just fine, our kids hardly even struggled one tiny bit, and our husbands, friends, and family cared for them so well. We had nothing to fear, and God proved that He was their sustainer, without our help. ;-) That theme of sustaining proved to be a big recurring one throughout our time in Africa and applied to many situations. This was just the first aspect of it. 

We had prayed and asked you all to pray that during the trip, things wouldn't all go smoothly. We wanted Africa to change us - for the experience to be more than a cool trip. We wanted to submit to the Lord's will, and realize that He would allow trials and blessings both, that would give us needed stretching, and we were willing to accept that. It was still hard, but it really was what we needed. This short poem really summed up well how I feel about what seemed like a 'hardship' for us: 

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.  

John Piper