Dear ones, you've just got to be praying for our hearts.
I snuggled in bed in the dark with Sofie last night and let her talk talk, and when I prayed for her and kissed her goodnight, her sweet face was drenched in tears.
She has waited a very long time to be here, and suddenly, it is wrapping up, and her time with her loved ones has been sweeter than she remembered it would be, and now she is having to change, again, and it is harder than she remembered it would be.
This is hard.
After everyone was sleeping, I lay on one couch across from Sharon's other, and we talked about how to take the sweet things with us. How to hold onto what is precious to my children and integrate it better in our everyday lives wherever we are. We talked about the sweet peace we've seen transform Lily these two weeks, the freedom, understand and security that Sofie has been living in. We didn't really have ANY answers.
Sofie's dearest friend, Marthelaura, spent the weekend with us, and despite having a life that is as polar opposite from Sofie's as could be, the Lord cut Marthelaura and Sofie from the exact same cloth. They wrapped their arms around each other immediately and didn't stop hugging, laughing, talking and playing until the final moment. Watching and listening to them just wrung my heart out the whole weekend.
Our kids have been doing well in Mississippi...they are transitioning well. But this trip has made me realize that they have been having to WORK at it...and still are. It is still taking a lot out of them, still a stressful element in their subconscious lives. They still come into every situation, especially socially, trying to understand the peers around them, trying to understand where everyone else is coming from, trying to mimic and fit into this new culture, trying to find their place...and this past two weeks they have been free from that...truly different kids.
If I could bottle up what is home for them and carry it with us, I would. For Ben and Nora, home is where we are...and they love and embrace the ones we love easily, though the talk of goodbyes this morning put them over the edge. Ben told us this morning over Haitian breakfast spaghetti that Junior is my brother, and Jonas is his.
No one took it lightly, because without fail, Ben prays for Jonas, makes us all pray for Jonas, every. single. day. in Ridgeland, Mississippi. I've never had a kiddo so stuck on a praying for a person, and what a gift that powerful perseverance is to us all.
But for Lily and Sofie, home is where they GET IT, where they can let down their guards, where the pressure is off...and how sweet it has been to see them "in their sweatpants" these two weeks.
We are just a bunch of pieces, the Ayars, scattered about in His hands, and all of us DEEPLY conditioned to despise goodbyes.
As they dominate today and tomorrow, please be praying for us and for the tender, stretching hearts of our children. 
I am just putting it in writing today (to make it official when I struggle to) that I trust Him. I trust Him with all the pieces of our hearts and all the pieces of our children's hearts and all the pieces of our country Haiti and all the pieces of the people found here that we love.
I have very few talents. I'm not very athletic and I can't sew on a button. I'm terrible with technology and I can't sing or dance or act. I hate being in front of people, struggle to prepare a sermon or teaching, I can't handle dreary or cold weather, I have no big visions, and I am utterly unimpressive when it comes to events, parties, performing or spotlights. I talk to myself frequently, I can NEVER remember the names of movies, roads, restaurants, songs or places, I have to study all of Lily and Sofie's math beforehand (and even then, they often school me), and my expectations are always ridiculously high.
But I DO have a mustard seed of faith.
My gift of faith isn't even mine, but His. So.
He'll have to do something with all this.
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