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These kiddos.  

I miss sharing them with so many people who love them. And I also love having them more...and am realizing that all this extra time with them is so sweet. This has been such an emotional time for all of us that I am thankful that mama is NOT running off to work, not coming and going, not trying to balance 12 jobs. 

We have dining room chairs now...but still no table.  Until then, we're working the picnic table :)  I am SO looking forward to having a place to all sit together and feed my family, and to start having new friends join us.

And please, old friends.  Please come.  I know most of our people are from no where NEAR Mississippi, but if you ever are (or ever want to be) please, please come stay with us. Also, your letters HAVE BEEN PARAMOUNT.  What joy it has brought me to sit with a cup of coffee and read through your lives and hearts and experiences and prayers and to feel loved on and known...I mean, they have meant even more than I thought they would. Thank you.

Haiti has ruined us in lots of ways, and I'm realizing one of the reasons we are so odd is because we absolutely see this new place as our new mission field.  We didn't pick here. We didn't pick this neighborhood. We didn't go looking for certain things or for dream-fulfillment or for the best possible place to live or for some American dream. We have a genuine calling. That desire to be obedient has been driving us. The same one that took us to Haiti. 

 This is nothing like Haiti, and it's nothing like where we were before Haiti.  But from day one, we saw the language in Haiti as one to master, the people as one to make family, the hard places as places to shine Him, all places places to share Him...that's what you do when you go somewhere to be a missionary.....and we just can't seem to help seeing Jackson any differently. 

This is a foreign land to us. It's not Columbus or Philly and it's not Haiti, and here we are, no friends (past 2 weeks) or family, trying again to learn the language, trying again to find family, trying again to shine Him in hard places, trying to share Him in how we live and work and family...trying to live in community in a way that must seem weird to people (that IS Haiti's fault!).  But it's just all we know...and the only way we know to live in a neighborhood, to go to work, to be at the store, is in community...even in all this isolation (which we are obviously not doing very well :).

When I think of this as our new mission-field, my expectation is that of COURSE this is hard. Our first two years in Haiti were excruciating. Excruciating. I will write a book someday.

Today, I herded this crew of cats to town for smoothies, and it was such a joy to get to know them all a bit and to hear a full mile of giggles and back. I've prayed for friends for our kids almost every day since they were born, and I am thankful to have so many within the two blocks of our house. 

 The girls loved their day in full, and then cried themselves to sleep tonight, and all I can tell them is that we are in this together.  They love so fully, these girls, and they fully rejoice in new friendships and fully mourn being well-known and rich in the friendships they've had all their lives. They love what's in front of them and miss what's behind them all fiercely. 

So I sit on the couch with them every morning and we read the Word, the only lamp.  And sometimes they cry and sometimes it's me, but today I could barely get through the simple and powerful word of their devotional (Exploring Grace Together, Jessica Thompson).

Have you ever thought about how hard it must have been for Jesus to leave heaven and come to earth? He had always been with God, his Father, and with the Holy Spirit--since forever. He had to leave them to come to earth, and then He had to leave his friends and family on earth when he died and went back to heaven. If there was ever anybody who understands the heartache of being away from someone you love, it was Jesus. 

The really neat thing is that he promises to comfort us. He promises to be with us in our sadness, in our times of loneliness. He promises to be enough for us. He will be our forever friend who is always with us. He will make our hearts feel better with his love, and because of his love, we can tell him all about our sadness. We can run to Jesus because he knows what living apart from friends is like, and his care for us will make it better.  He cares about your sadness; you can go to him.

What a good word for us today, however simple.  

If there was ever anybody who understands the heartache of   whatever your heartache is  , it is Jesus. And He promises to comfort us, and to be with us, and that He genuinely, intimately understands. And He cares about our sadness. We can go to Him. 

I'm going to Him A LOT lately...and that makes right here, wherever, a good place to be.