An engineering masterpiece and the nomadic life

You may think that the title of my blog refers to the amazing work Mark will be helping with in Guatemala.... getting clean water into the bodies of people who desperately need it.  While that is an engineering masterpiece and a wonderful one at that.... that's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is the amazing task that my brilliant husband accomplished of squeezing all of our belongings into a 9 ft. by 20 ft. area of our basement.  We moved out of our house last Saturday.  The day before I heard him building something and I was thinking, "Is this really the time for a woodworking project??  PACK, ALREADY!!"  I went downstairs to see what he was up to & he said, "I'm building a frame for the couch."  "Huh?", I said.  He proceeded to explain that with our two couches, he was building a frame so that one could stack on top of the other, therefore conserving our precious space.  So, we now have boxes stacked floor to ceiling, about 4 large boxes deep and all of our furniture moved out of our house!!  WHEW!!  We're exhausted.

I kind of feel like a nomad right now.  That's really hard for me because I really like to have my nest.  We are thankful for the space we have at Mark's parent's house & they have been very welcoming.  But when I hear, "Mom, where is my underwear?  Where are my pajamas?  Where are my shoes?"  several times each day it has made me realize that having a place for things is important to simply make daily life function.  So, I have worked hard this last week to make it feel a bit like home for our kiddos.  We have clothes stored in under-the-bed boxes and drawers anywhere we can find them, but it's feeling a little more livable.  However, I still feel a bit like a nomad knowing that we'll be here for less than 2 weeks, in Antigua for 5, on to the mountains... you get the picture... then next year--where do we go??  As my sister said to me on the phone the other day:  "It's hard enough to be leaving everything familiar for a year, but when you don't even know what you're coming home to.... that makes it extra hard."  I'm thankful to know that my emotions and my stress level match that feeling of "extra hard" and she confirms that my feelings are really normal.  But life certainly feels extra hard right now.... and extra uncertain.... so with that come lots of extra tears.  Thankful for my patient, loving husband in the midst of the flood.

We went to Memphis for a conference last week for a few days and had the opportunity to spend a few days with Ginger & Kevin.... who spent the last year of their lives in the Ulpan Valley.  As Kevin said at dinner the other night, "If you weren't really scared walking into this, we would wonder if you were really looking at reality."  But the encouraging thing is that they are on the other side of their year and they are thankful they did it.  So in the midst of my uncertainty and scared... I'm going to hang on to that bit of encouragement.