On July 25, 1999 our family loaded onto a Continental flight headed for Ecuador. We were moving there to live and work in Quito with Youth World. On July 25, 2012, I boarded an American Airlines flight, leaving Quito to return to the USA to finish up my last four classes of my Masters Program at Talbot's Institute of Spiritual Formation! I had many emotions as I processed the journey in reverse that we had taken so many years ago, and all that God has been teaching and doing in me and our family through the many, many, many transitions that have faced us through these years. I finally got to a place where I would politely but firmly say to those who said "we are in a transition period" that they were setting themselves up for disappointment and non-reality, if they had expectation that transition would be short-lived, and then pass! No such thing! Living abroad in this day and age heightens the reality that transition is one of the main cornerstones of life! People coming and going, we come and go on Home Ministry Assignment. I can't think of too many jobs in the world where you are required to up and leave for 8-10 weeks minimum over the summer, or 3-6 months every few years, go back to a "home" country, live out of a suitcase and visit and talk about your ministry for those six months and return to the field "rested!" For sure this system is glitched to put it nicely! Then there are the transitions of kids graduating and you parenting in two different continents, in different time zones etc. Yes, transition is part of life, and when God began to challenge me about it's permanence, rather than its transitory nature, I began to be helped! This summer the hunt for eucharisteo has been significant in my journey to joy in transition. Oh, I am far from being grace-filled and gratitude saturated in transition, I still prefer not to, still prefer permanence and constancy and stability, but God is afoot shifting my focus, and helping find His grace gifts amidst the change and shifting shadows that are part of transition. So, I am transitioning back to the States! For another season of an undetermined amount of weeks, months I will be here. Phil will come back next week for a few weeks and then return to Ecuador. He continues to go back and forth many times a year! He has done this to allow me to be in school. A grace gift for sure!
Maybe the "shock" will hit, but overall, the transition has been fairly painless. I am a little tired, it is wonderful to see the kids. I find myself thinking about what people in Ecuador are doing, gas trucks are stirring, honking their horns through the neighborhood, my Carolina walking buddies will be in the park, Graham will be napping, etc. I find it normal to be here, and normal to be in Quito, whatever normal is! I have found myself thinking about how there are quite a few places that I can slip into and feel a semblance of "normal" and wonder if that is a grace gift that I have fought against and resisted for a long time, because I wanted one home, one place that I belong to. Could it be that I am living the miracle that follows eucharisteo, joy? It is Saturday morning, a week from now, I will be driving from Moses Lake towards Gig Harbor where I will commence my 3-week retreat of solitude and silence, part of my Masters program, and part of God's divine plan for me in 2012!
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