Welcome Home!

Wow! After 3 months away from home, we've made it back for one week before having to leave again for another few months.

The first month out was spent on getting a doctor's check-up for Lil' Bit and taking some vacation time. As we were in the process of getting back to our country, we heard about some trouble going on in our town which resulted in the leaving of all the western foreigners from there. We then sat in the capital for the next 2 months, at one point losing all hope of me getting to come home at all before leaving the country for Lil' Bit's birth.

After some promising rumors and news, and our teammates making the flight home, we decided to give the road trip a try. Not only have we been blessed with some new wheels to use, but the road seems to be increasingly getting better and better. Admittedly, our song may change come winter when the natural elements have their way, but for this drive, we were astonished with how smoothly and quickly it went. In our minds, 16 hours is a good trip. This time, the total driving time was 13 1/2 hours. Not too shabby!

We stopped to stay with some national friends on the way up, which was great to see them again, although Matt got told that he got fat on vacation and I was asked if I forgot the language. Oh well!

But getting home was soooo much better than what I could have imagined. Part of me was mentally prepared for the worst, having no idea what kinds of things we would see as a result of what kept us out for 2 months. Plus, our teammates came back to some difficult housing deals in some sense because of the shape that they found their house in.

We, however, came back to the royal treatment! Even though our landlord's family had been living in our house while we were gone, the only way we could tell that now is that things are in better shape than when we left in June. The furniture in the family room has been rearranged, but it looks and feels much more homier now with their arrangement. Plus, it's perfectly set up to move the desk out of our bedroom and into the family room, making room for Lil' Bit's bed in the warm bedroom (since we'll be coming back in winter).

They were in the process of finishing up cleaning the house. Do I clean the house? Um...moving right along now...

Things that were out in the kitchen had been put into cabinets, and one cabinet had even been rubber-banded shut (by them, not me!) so as to signal not to get into that stuff.

They had prepared some goat, and rewarmed it for us. We then sat outside on a gorgeous day and started catching up on life that we had missed. A lot happened while we were out, and the main reason it was such a big deal for me to get back up here was to not miss out on hearing people's hearts as they talked about life, hopefully being able to respond accordingly and with words of hope and encouragement.

Plus, they brought over a jar of freshly pasteurized milk from their own cow. Perfect!

And, to top all this off as a great welcome home, our teammates were super helpful and had planned lunch for us as well so that coming off the road trip would be that much easier. What great people we are surrounded by!