Home Again!!

Yes we're home again! It's been wonderful to be back in our own familiar surrounding, but of course we sure do miss all our dear family in the States!

We had quite the adventure traveling... sometimes I think they should make one of those TV reality shows about a family with 4 children under the age of 8 traveling half-way around the world.. quite, quite entertaining let me tell you - you have it all.. drama, humor, tension, hilarity, adventure just to name a few. We flew from San Antonio to Atlanta no problemo.. but then on our flight from Atlanta to New York we circled & circled New York for what seemed forever (fog). By the time we finally landed and actually got to our gate (another 45 minutes) our flight to Moscow had already departed. So we got our tickets changed to fly out the next day and headed for the nearest hotel. We went outside the airport and started walking through this dimly lit walkway trying to find the train we had to ride to get to the shuttle bus station... I was feeling exausted and just then looked over at Rachel - she had a gigantic smile on her face and put everything into perspective when she happily announced, 'Boy, now THIS is fun!!' Yes, oh yes the fun and adventure continued as we met interesting people riding the train, then the shuttle bus and then dinner in the hotel. We flew out the next day with no problems and the kiddos actually did fantastic on the planes - yeah!!

I was really struck this time of how completely different life can be over here! The day before we left Texas the kiddos went wading in the Guadalupe River and our ride to the airport was in a most comfortable 15 passenger van that was like riding in the lap of luxury. (thanks again Tom!!) We landed in Moscow to almost 3 feet of snow on the ground and piled into a 25 year old *jewel* of Soviet machinery... it's sorta like an extended cab pick-up but nothing like what Ford or Chevy offer. This vehicle I'm pretty sure had no shock absorbers anywhere.. in fact at one point we hit a gigantic pothole and I was convinced the entire vehicle would fall apart around us - anyway we did arrive back in Nara-Faminsk safe and sound.

When we opened our front door we discovered none of the lights worked and the temperature was just barely above freezing - Hmmmmm! More adventure - we put a space heater in our bedroom and everyone jumped in bed to snuggle for the night. About midnight I got up and discovered 2 inches of water flooding the bathroom floor - the radiator in the attic had burst and drained all the water down into the 1st floor bathroom!! So we ran around for the next several hours fixing, tightening, and draining all the water from our radiators. (We've already had practice with this kinda stuff when we lived in the apartment in happened 3 times to the radiators above us). Okay there is a reason I'm telling you all this :)..... in the midst of all the wonderful happening I sat there in the cold thinking 'I WAS ACTUALLY HOMESICK FOR ALL THIS!!' And then I realized that YES I was homesick for *all this*! God's grace in our lives is just amazing and when he calls you to live and work and serve somewhere, HE will give you supernatural love for the people and joy & peace in your living circumstances - even when it means being halfway around the world from the people you love most in all the world. So yes, our whole family was indeed very *homesick* the entire time we were in the States because God has put it in our hearts to call Nara-Faminsk, Russia home... and man it's GREAT to be home!!