Once Again, An Empty House

Despite constant change, life has a way of going in circles. There is a first time for everything, but even many of these firsts feel strangely familiar. We are back at one of those moments today. Back at the beginning of the circle.

By the end of the weekend, furniture will have been moved out of our apartment, sold in order to fill a deficit in our fundraising account. Laura and I will be living amidst barely more than a few stray dust balls recently exposed to the light of day.

For Laura, school finished this week. We are standing in the wake of an exodus of foreigners: diplomats returning home for summer vacations, business men and women returning to head offices, missionaries going home to raise more money.

Our stomachs are overflowing with the bounty of farewell dinners, some hosted by us, some held in our honour. We are sad to leave behind so many people whom we did not even know a year ago. Many people have asked us about plans to return, but we offer no promises. Perhaps we will meet again. Perhaps only in heaven.

We have been eager to finish well; eager to maintain motivation and energy right up to our departing moments, but our minds are drifting back home. It has been difficult to kindle new friendships that we know will be difficult to sustain in such a short time.

And we are only too aware that, for the Mozambicans that we leave behind, their stories started long before we arrived and will extend far into the future. We will soon be forgotten by all but our closest friends, replaced in body and memory by a new set of missionaries with different perspectives, different backgrounds, different ways of doing things. Perhaps missionaries from North America; perhaps missionaries from Africa.

We are ready to return home, though not entirely ready to leave this home. And we realize that the home we return to will not be the home we left a year ago -- not because it has changed, but because we have changed. Because we have spent the past year being transformed in the crucible of God's hands.

We have been living a life that, despite our best efforts, slide presentations and photographs will never completely convey. Our friends and family will never completely be able to relate to the stories we share. And our friends and family have continued to live their lives over the past year as well. Their own stories have continued on, and we are all faced with the task of weaving these two divergent stories back together.

In just a few days we will experience another shock as we once again splash the crisp, cool water of our home culture on our faces. And have the freedom once again to brush our teeth with the convenience of tap water.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And He is the same in Mozambique as in Europe as in North America. His constancy is the foundation that will keep us anchored as we prepare for yet another transition.