confession.

I'm homesick.


I've been trying to suck it up and been focusing on the positive and been loving so much and enjoying so much, too.  I love being here in the home I grew up in, and I love sharing it with my girls, daily the familiar scenes reminding me of so many little stories and memories to share.  I love seeing and spending time with so many people, I love how much cooler it is than home, how fast the internet is, how easy the ice cream comes, how fun it is to jump in the car and go to the playground...the park...the grocery store...the ANYTHING.

I LOVE watching my girls do ballet, have some little friends other than each other, all in English, learning something new that they love.  I love that dad came over for dinner the other night, I love that blueberries are 5 pints for $5, love going to different churches and worshipping in my heart language, love this old dish washer and the dryer downstairs.

So much is so easy and so much is so close, that I even hate to admit to myself how homesick I am because I want to be content and grateful.

I AM content and grateful.
But I am still homesick.

I miss the starry nights, the sweet community, the controlled chaos, the many simple beauties, the crowded dinner table, having dear people in and out of our home continually, I miss the work, I miss the students, I miss the daily survival struggle that draws us close to Him, I miss the worship.

It's been a long time away, and our typically hard hit cross-cultural summers of life in America has been quite a bit more hard-hit than modesty issues and cell phone usage this year.  For so many claims that this has been the summer that Love Wins in America...it sure has felt far more that this is the summer that things. fall. apart. BROKEN.

It's overwhelming, even if you never left.

But yesterday, as Matt was on a speaker call with our 8 key staff members at Emmaus, and their Creole voices all floated down the stairs, Lily, Sofie and I ALL perked up.  Granny!  Fanfan and news of his new daughter...Lucner and Leme, Simeon and Claudin...

The girls raced upstairs to see their dear faces, and were disappointed to learn that they are internet-less at EBS right now, so it was just a phone call to the main office on speaker phone.

Still...the voices of beloved family reminded us what beloved family they are.  I miss their fellowship, and I miss working beside them.

Today at the playground, Sofie quickly nabbed a new friend and Lily quietly stalked 10 possible ones, finally retreating to my bench dejectedly.

"Mom, it is SO MUCH easier to make new friends in Haiti," she puffed.  "Here, if the other kid doesn't come up to me, I'm just too shy to go make them my friend!  But in Haiti, everyone runs up and grabs my hand and makes me their friend.  I miss that."

Sofie, of course, misses her cat and Gertha and Mish and her Uncle June.  I work hard not to mention home, trying to help them settle where we are...but they don't need me to remember anymore.  They miss it on their own, and continue to urge my belly, "Common' Nora.  I want to go HOME."

Much of my issue, I am sure, is that I'm getting rather exhausted with this 40 week process of meeting Nora.  I don't feel good, I can't sleep anymore, and I'm getting tired of feeling like an old lady with aches and pains, and answering questions of, "When's the baby due?" with "on her birthday."

Besides missing our crowded dinner table, our community, our beds and our culture, it IS coming up quick.  The Heckmans, Junior, Matt and Carol all return to Haiti on the 17th, and you KNOW about my big fear of missing out.  Classes start only a week later, so we've been refreshing our memories once again on how you quickly obtain a birth certificate, social security card and passport for an infant...

In the meantime, there are still many dinners with friends, speaking and spending the weekend with our New Bedford Church family this weekend (!!!), Uncle Don's daughter's wedding, Seeds of Greatness August 9th morning followed by the big Emmaus + Sidewalk Prophets event on August 9th, and some time in Florida with Matt's Delware-relocated-to-Florida parents and brother and sister-in-law and niece and nephew before we fly the miles from there South.

One day at a time, I will be grateful.  I will appreciate the things Haiti makes me appreciate about being here--have I mentioned ice cream? medical care, close family and friends--and when I return to Haiti I will appreciate the things I miss now, always missing something, always working to be content and grateful.

So many reasons to be.  Even if there weren't, He is One, the only reason I need.

So grateful for your cherished prayers.