Mixed Emotions...

  I leave the missions field and return home in 2 months (incase you've missed the constant reminders in my past several post).  Anyway, to do the math, that's 8 weeks... or more specifically, in 63 days.  In one sense, I feel like I can't even begin to explain how emotionally mixed up that makes me.  Yet on the other hand, it's something I want to talk about...I need to talk about it... so I am going to try to explain how I feel here....

  There are some days when the thought of packing up and moving home completely excites me.  I miss my friends, my family, my culture, and the new England way of life.  I miss having four seasons and getting to enjoy the different foods that come from each.  I miss being able to get in the car and drive to a coffee shop, or getting to chat face to face with friends who've known me longer than a year.  I miss all that and so much more.

  But there's also things here in Ecuador that I am now going to miss when I go back home.  I am going to miss my teammates, and the kids I work with, and the good friends I've made.  I am going to miss being forced to talk Spanish and realizing I actually know more than I think.  I am going to miss having a "job" that consists in many ways of building relationships and hanging out with people.  I am even going to miss being able to eat a two course meal with a drink for less than $2.50!

   It's funny, thinking back to the when I was just preparing to come to Ecuador, I remember being so afraid.  I knew God was calling me here, but that didn't lessen the struggle of not knowing what to expect and feeling so completely out of control about it all. I was of course excited as well though, I was preparing to head out on an adventure of a lifetime and in some ways that was just the dissolvent I needed to see beyond my nervousness and step out in coming.

  Who would have guessed that two years later I would be dealing with the exact same emotions when I think about heading home.  On the one hand I am so excited.  I have all these dreams and ideas as to where God is leading next and I can't wait to get a jump start on it all.  In my minds eye I can envision what my life could turn out to be and I long to be there, forgetting all the work that goes into "getting there".  The on the other hand, I'm so nervous.  Although, I know once again that this is where God is leading and He will make a way, I can't help but be afraid of the unknown....of the hard roads and the pain ahead.  Of course it's going to awesome and life changing....just like these past two years were...but it's also going to have it's own valley's and pit...like these two years did.  And I'm just not ready to deal with all of that!

  Plus you add on top of these emotions, the thought of trying to savor every last moment here in this country...not wasting a single second I have left...with the longing for home I've had for so much of this year, and it's even harder to make sense of it all.  Then there's thinking about reverse culture shock and my own personal insecurities that always rare their ugly heads around changing times...and well, yeah, I become one big bag of mixed emotions!

  I guess that's the choice I made though when I jumped into this whole surrendering my life thing.  Saying "Yes" to whatever God calls me to do is always going to cause a war in my soul between what my flesh and my spirit want, between what is safe and what scares me and between the pull of the world and the hold of my heavenly father.   But, if I've learned anything in my time here it's that the "yes" is always worth it!  So here's to whatever comes next!