Goodbye, Hello - Change is coming RAPIDLY round the bend, ready or not.

Our church group is flying home, and in the middle of the night last night, I woke up in a cold sweat, with the realization that we ourselves will also be flying home in only 53 days.

53 days. How can that be?? And in those 53 days, we will:

- Finish our homeschool year with Macy, Zach and Sam

- host an old YL friend (Allison Lundeen) of mine and her daughter, who will tutor Macy for her second to last month in Algebra and also do other mission work with Macy

- host another old YL friend (Pablo Hernandez) and his daughter as she helps Macy finish the last month of Algebra and do mission work at the local preschool with Macy.

- host a med student, the daughter of one of Tim's old med school friends 

(Hey! We won't be lonely these last 53 days!!)

- Pack, Move out and paint our house of the last two years

- find a way to continue some of my projects ere which are ongoing (such as sewing projects and kids' educations)

- visit Ruthie and Stephen over their midterm break

- obtain a visa for Congo.

- visit Congo, check out Iidjwi island, where Moses Deste is from, and also learn about a hospital there, amongst other cool an fun things, with our friends from Boston, the Neils. 

- renew our work visas before we leave the ou try

- 

- attend Stephen's high school graduation

Whew! 

That's a lot. In fact, it's more than I can grasp right now. 

Right now, I'm busy just trying to understand this: 

How can two years have flown by so fast, yet also to have encompassed a lifetime? I don't even remember who I was BEFORE we came here. That life now all seems like a dream to me. 

What was life like.....

Before I met my "sewing lady" friends, Sarah, Mama Hope, Jeannette, Jeanne and Sifa?

Before I knew Muganga, Ildephonse, Thomas, Simeon, Innocent, and Silas?

Before I knew Moses Deste or Joshua Jules, or Joshua's big brother William or little brother, Kelly. Or knew his mom's (Sifa's) blind little sister, or other sister with only one eye, or her mom, infected by rape with HIV?

Before I enjoyed having a cook in my kitchen?! (Ah, Simeon, we wish you could make pineapple cake and tacos for us for forever!!)

Before we met Daniel, so many of Tim's precious patients, the people of Ruheru church, sweet and dear Esperance and her whole family, and on and on it goes?

How do I return to Texas, to the life I lived before coming to Rwanda? Of course, i love my home and my friends there. ive missed them all so much. but what will it be like to return? How will our kids adapt? How long will we be home before we go back to Africa?  How will Sam and Ruthie adapt to "home" again, to American school, to everything familiar yet now also so foreign? 

How will we even afford living in the States again?

These were some of the questions swirling in my head last night, keeping me awake.  I don't know the answers, but I do have peace knowing there is One who has gone before us, and Who knows all things.