so will I

Thank you for praying...Guesica is still in the hospital and has a blood clot in her leg, still cannot walk. Keep on...she is discouraged and really struggling to be apart from baby Yasha and afraid...thank you for lifting them up with me.

Tomorrow our moving unit from Ohio arrives. Sleeping on the floor has been ok. Not having a coffee maker has been ok (with a lot of coffee runs).

But sleeping on the floor AND not having a coffee maker is really starting to struggle.  

No one was living in this house for several years, so there has just been a LOT lot of little things needing worked on.  We are SO thankful for dad, doing tons of wiring and hinges and dryer-fixing and and and....endless lists, and he knows how to do all of them.  We are learning a lot.

Tomorrow is a big long day, but it will be really good to have a few things. We are also so so thankful to have some of our boxes from Haiti and a few things piled about that look like home.

It is strange to start the washing machine after the hottest part of the day...or when it is raining.  With thirteen years of hanging clothes out in the sun.  It is strange to need milk and be able to get it today.  Three minutes from here....not waiting until Roselore comes with a gallon straight from her cow for me to pasteurize every Monday morning at 7 am. It is strange to need new hinges and to drive four minutes and buy hinges. The ones you wanted. Exactly. Right now. Instead of ordering them through Missionary Flights International and waiting 2-3 weeks to receive them.  It is bizarre to go to the grocery store and find more than you could ever need, instead of picking through shelves of expired cans, trying to find something you could use. It's beautiful, beautiful, to put the dishes in the "little fridge", as the kids keep calling the dish-washer (the one and only requirement I had on a new house), and listen to someone else washing them in there.

Add in all the already corona-virus-bizarre-new (meeting tons of neighbors from a distance and needing to get to stores that are closed and needing a freezer, and NO ONE, even online, has one until September, because everyone bought them ALL, apparently, when this started) and deep south new (like our precious 80-something year old neighbor--whose name is genuinely, even on her mail and in every introduction, "Lady Jane"--on a Sunday, totally alone the entire stormy day, but answering her door with her hair curled, in pearls and lipstick, a beautiful sweater and slacks) and there is just a lot of new right now.  Some of us are better new/change people than others.

The kids are running through a strong gauntlet of emotions these days...settled/still very unsettled...not in suitcases, but no dressers yet, camping, but not camping...not in someone else's home, but not at all our home yet...asking when we are going home-home.  You can imagine. I am SO THANKFUL for steady Nikki by my side and all the patience she has had in just sitting with Nora when she needs that emotionally, just looking at the Elmo book, again, when Ben needs that and helping Sofie and Lily work through so much with so much patience while Mommy and Daddy are trying to tame some of the chaos.

Everyone has been so SO lovely. We are just holding onto a lot of grace these days, and still having a very hard time sleeping, which I know isn't helping.

Our hurting friends and neighbors throughout the world, truly, are heavy on my heart tonight. I know you feel it, too.

The frame shattered in the move, but I'm holding onto this beautiful commitment my dear, thoughtful (and uber-talented) friend Randi made me a few years ago...