Beginning Goodbyes
/This transition is going to be HARD! Our family has made 3 overseas moves and many more domestic moves, so moving isn’t new to us, but this move is proving to be a different animal. The last 3 1/2 weeks have been a whirlwind, and the pace will continue right up until we fly out for our training in Virginia in the wee morning hours of the 25th.
Here’s what our life has looked like since finding out the our training was given the green light:
Dec 15th - green light, with subsequent weeping and shock for me (Rebekah) - I was certain we’d be here until April.
Christmas - we did very little packing and prepping over the Christmas and New years Holiday’s because we had family in town and have always been firm in our beliefs that relationships are preeminent. We enjoyed our Christmas season with family, but doing very little packing and prep proved to be hard on my circadian rhythm, which has been significantly disrupted since we found out we’re finally going. The gears in my head are ever in motion during the day, late into the night and then fire back up sometimes by 4:00 in the morning. I’m very tired.
Josh worked Christmas day, the 29th and the overnight shift of the 31st.
Christmas day we had Josh’s family her for the morning festivities, and then he took off for work at noon, as one of his co-workers graciously took the morning part of his 24 shift for him. I spent Christmas evening at Rob and Lyn’s where we had a delightful charcuterie board dinner and watched Muppets Christmas Carol. The boys and I came home around 7:00 to find that Cherry had torn open and devoured 3 expensive packages of dark chocolate treats we’d been given for Christmas. I put boys to bed and called Josh, and we worked together through how to manage the next few hours with her. The math we were doing told us she had consumed a very concerning amount of chocolate that could prove fatal. I spent the next 4 hours sitting up with her, waiting for symptoms of chocolate toxicity to set in. Long story short, she did fine, because our mental math was wrong - she would have had to consume 10x the amount she did to be in any danger at all. She just had a gut ache. The induced vomiting I put her through simply made her gut ache worse.
My dad came to visit from the 28th to the 1st. It was his second to last of 7 straight months of visits. Our countless conversations about the preciousness of the Gospel and what that looks like our daily lives was a good steady spark in my processing through uprooting to move to Africa. These conversations and the memories with him over this past year are priceless.
Jan 1st Josh and I did a murder mystery dinner evening with Josh’s parents and two sisters that are in town. It was a RIOT and was much needed laughter amidst a stressful time. We listed our house this same day, and much of the day was spent on email and phone getting all the details squared away with the listing agent.
Sunday the 3rd we had a bunch of guys heft our massive dresser up the basement stairs to put it in our long term storage trailer. After breaking their backs with that job, they hauled out our Turkish hutch from the dining room. We were so grateful for their servant hearts. I spent the rest of the afternoon depersonalizing the dining room in preparation for an afternoon full of showings schedule for Wed. Once it was disassembled I sat in the chair in the corner and had a good hard cry. This is all just so hard. By nature, I’m a bury roots type. My nostalgic attachment to things that we own can get me in trouble in times like these. We also said goodbye to our sister, Cara, as she loaded up to head back down to Texas.
Monday, Lyn came and worked through our boys laundry for us. Josh and I were busy that day bustling about packing, running errands, dropping off donation stuff, and doling out some of our belongings we were going to no longer keep. That night we enjoyed dinner with Jonathan and Esther Sundman. When we were asking for volunteers to go through our 6 months New Testament study program with us (a requirement by our sending company), they excitedly and gracious stepped up to the plate. We grew close to them through that process and they’ve spoken into our lives in countless ways over the past 18 months that we’ve been growing closer. After they left, we began the long process of pulling out every last article of the boys clothing, sorting it and putting it into 4 categories: clothing for the next few weeks, clothing for training in VA in the winter, clothing for language training in Kenya (in Kenya’s winter months) and clothing for the couple of months we’ll be in Tanzania (HOT weather!) before our crate arrives. These different packing categories for JUST clothing are only a tiny slice of the logistical insanity.
Tuesday the 5th we hosted a last minute breakfast with a precious sister-in-Christ with whom we’ve done some college ministry stuff here. A couple we’ve also worked with came, but were surprised to find we were moving, and to Africa! They had no idea we were leaving, which made for a funny morning as they walked in on a house torn apart, boys clothes covering the entire living room floor. Our conversation was good and as we drew breakfast to a close, as the to-do list was looming in both our minds. Julie took our older boys to the park a while to play and then headed out after we said our final goodbyes. It was a busy day of work and that evening we loaded up Cherry and took her to Josh’s parent’s house, her new home. She’s been a heck of a dog for us these past 4+ years. The gentlest giant of a dog I’ve known. We left from their house and attended our small group, where our sweet community prayed over us and our upcoming uprooting. We came home to a quiet house, with no Black Cherry to greet us, and it was sad.
Wednesday morning I popped awake at 4:15 and accidentally woke Josh up. Neither of us could get back to sleep, so after a while he said a sleepy good morning and headed down stairs to continue prepping the house for the showings. We plugged away throughout the morning and the boys and I headed over to the his parents house by about 10:00. He showed up at 12:00, after putting some finishing touches on the house while our gracious cleaners, Lupe and her sister Bernice, made things sparkle. Our afternoon at Rob and Lyn’s was restful and it felt very freeing to be out of the house and not have the option to work on anything there for a while. Nap time was stressful with a whacked out two year old, confused about all the change. He and I crashed for a while together on the bed in their guest room. Having only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before (and not more than 5 or 6 for the many nights before) I ached with fatigue and was hopeful for a solid nap, but having the chance to feel him breathing and watch him sleep peacefully next to me was worth the lack of a solid nap. He woke intermittently and made a sleepy but intentional eye contact with me many times throughout that restless hour of napping. Poor guy hasn’t a clue what is coming.We rounded up the crew around 3:30 and drove to a trampoline park across town, to meet with our precious friends, the Padilla’s, to celebrate (belated) Luke’s birthday with them with and evening bouncing followed by 5 guys for dinner. We came home sore, to a spotless house that had just been seen by 8 different couples, put the boys to bed and soaked our old bones in the hot tub for a while. In the time we sat soaking, we heard from our listing agent of 2 offers, read through them carefully, asked her council, accepted the cleanest of the two offers and praised the Lord for his provision. I then cried hard as Josh reminded me of the Lord’s promises. We couldn’t believe that our house sold after ONE afternoon of showings! The buyers are offering us asking price and asking NOTHING of us. It’s truly a miracle! Even now we are still blown away by his provision of this sale.
Thursday we were back to it with the packing and prep. The list of to-do’s keep me awake at night and springs me awake early in the mornings, all the while he keeps saying, “It’s fine. We are doing just fine!” And he means it. Yes, the mountain of musts is high, but the Lord continues to provide time and energy to get things done. My dear friend, Francey, came over to soak in the hot tub with me during the boys’ quiet time. We talked the afternoon away, rejoicing over the Lord’s provisions, but deeply sad about the impending goodbye we will have to say. She tapped me on the shoulder the very first Sunday we attended church at Emmaus, and said she noticed we were new there. Our connection with one another happened quickly and the depth of our friendship has grown exponentially as we’ve walked intentionally together through some very difficult trials in each others lives these past 3 1/2 years.
Friday morning I began the long avoided and much dreaded task of emptying my closet of every clothing item I own. The first order of business was to separate out the clothing that just needed to go. After a long while of this and not much progress Josh enthusiastically came to help. I didn’t want his help, but knew I needed it. It’s just stupid clothes, but it’s so difficult to work through all the categories and sizes and what might be needed or wanted when we come home on our first furlough in 3 or 4 years. I need the hot weather clothes for Tanzania before our crate shipment arrives and then the cold weather clothes for our training in VA and language school in Kenya (winter months). Get rid of, store in the trailer, take to training in VA, language school and pre crate Tanzania. I’m good at sorting and categorizing and have much practice doing this over the years for road trips, but this is on a whole other level! A friend of Joel’s came to play from 12-4. They are two peas in a pod and the goodbye was heartbreaking. Joel curled up on my lap on the couch and cried hard after Jay left. Moving with babies and toddlers and really young kiddos was difficult, but we are newbies to moving with boys that have established deep friendships. It’s going to rough trying to work through our own grief as well as helping them work through theirs. Later that evening my Dad and Mel and my Uncle Karl and Aunt Jacque came into town. I haven’t seen Karl and Jacque in almost a decade and it was SUCH a neat time together! They loved the boys, and we all sat up late into the night playing board games and laughing hard in our sleepy stupors.
