Time to unpack my Suitcases

I still have my suitcases and carry-on our bedroom floor next to our bed. I don’t know what the delay is about. Then I realized that I’m waiting for my husband. Goodness, could I be any less of a sap? I’m pretending like I haven’t arrived yet. I think it’s time to unpack all the way and put my suitcases away. I should.  Somehow in the back of my head, and all over our bedroom, I’m pretending I just got here. Its been over a week though. I’m still pretty mixed up in my hours – sunlight is supposed to help with that, and taking it easy.

I’m still so in tuned to Africa time more than America time. It’s just to hard unplug from African life, and get into some routine in America. My routine here is still almost completely full of emails, phone calls, chats, and reports about Africa. Now even my internal clock is focusing more on Chimoio time. All I can do is one day at time. Take care of kids, call hubby, read text books, do homework, send emails, plan, organize, communicate, and write up reports…..it shouldn’t matter to much what time of the day those things happen. Except my kids are here in Colorado on Colorado time, so meals and hanging out with them and getting them to bed is on this clock. Communication with the team is on their clock, and communicating with my hubby is on Chimoio time, because he’s there – only we have a normal pattern. We don’t talk about work stuff in the evening. We talk about work stuff in the morning to plan the day. Only now everything is flip flopped and mixed together.

We will make it through the next couple weeks. We will do better than make it through some rough patches of weird sleep hours, and flip flop conversations, we will come out the other side as champions. It’s for our family. We are Mama and Papa Bear…..and for us, we realize that is a great thing. It drives our heart and vision for building a family instead of a mission. We are missionaries. We can travel. We can sacrifice ‘normal’ hours and face various challenges. Our mission is not our first priority….our relationship with the vision giver (Papa God) our relationship with each other (romance) and our tenacity for our family.

I like waiting for my hubby to come home, but it won’t hurt to have some more floor space. I will still have calls at weird hours, and some things more mixed up than usual until my hubby comes home. Its worth it because it’s full of love and heart.

Lots of love,

Missionary Momma Mia