Home!

Well, as anyone who has traveled over time zones knows, it takes awhile for your body to catch up with the clock. We arrived home last evening safe and sound. Barb had quite the greeting committee as her entire family ran to meet her in the parking lot. Heidi went home to a quiet house and my kids began making up for lost time with each other. But, this morning I rose early. For one we always rose with the sun in the C.A.R. and two, at 5:00 am, my body thought it was 10 am and just couldn’t sleep.

As I walked around the house and marveled at how clean it was, the things of life here began to grab my attention: unpacking, laundry, bills to pay, banking, shopping that needs to be done, work, etc. It’s difficult sometimes to adjust back into your culture. The pace of life here is much faster, the demands often greater. So please, as you interact with the team, be patient with us. If we do strange things like raise our eyebrows at you from across the room, we are just saying “hi.” If we snap our fingers in the air, we are just trying to get your attention. If we want to shake every person's hand whom we see, well, that’s just the polite thing to do there. If you are hanging out with us, driving or walking and we begin to wave at everyone on the street, just give us time, we will adjust.

Culture is an interesting thing. I enjoyed discussing with Maurice, our translator, the differences in our cultures. We both realized we could learn from each other. His culture is more like Mary and our’s like Martha. He sometimes would get frustrated with his culture because of the lack of things that would get accomplished because people really don’t have much concept of time and relationships are far more important anyway. I get frustrated sometimes because accomplishing things sometimes takes priority over taking time to build relationships. We agreed there is a middle ground between our cultures that we could both benefit from.

Anyway, we are all happy to be home, even though I miss already the friends we have in the C.A.R. There is a great bunch of people there serving the Lord and the people of their country. I can’t wait for all of you to meet them personally one day in Heaven. We always part by saying to them, we will see you again either here (in Africa) or there (pointing up to Heaven). Of course they always say they hope it is in the C.A.R first. And so do I.

Thanks again for all of your prayers and comments to the blog. You have been a lifeline to us, and we are happy to be back home among you!

Serving Together for Christ,

Jeana