Updates
One Way.
I have just arrived home from a wonderful, but all-too-short visit with my mother and Veronique, my twin sister in Oregon! Vann and Clara held down the fort and worked diligently here at home while I was gone. My darling little mother who is well now, thank God, has suffered two heart attacks in the last year, and I haven’t been well enough to go to be with her. This is the hardest part of the missionary life – being away from family for years that turn into decades and missing so many of the milestones, celebrations, times of crisis, births, and funerals.
Veronique and I had determined to at least try to celebrate our decade birthdays together. We turned 40 last November and I was too unwell to travel. It was more disappointing and difficult for me than I had anticipated - I can usually face such things with grit and grace knowing that a greater goal lies ahead, but this felt like a deep loss. God sees and cares for me so well through my Vann who knows me better than I know myself at times. Even though he doesn’t understand the bond that I have with my twin, he sees it, and over the years he has made sure to set aside time for us to be together. He calls it our “twin therapy”, and that’s exactly what it is to us! Since our birthday, Vann had been keeping an eye out for a ticket for me to go to Oregon, and as soon as my health took a turn for the better at the end of last month, he found an amazing deal on a last-minute, two-week trip!
Grateful doesn’t even begin to describe the gratitude in my heart. We had a wonderful time, although our time together isn’t truly complete unless our little sister Regina is with us too - she was sorely missed. It was an odd sensation being in the States and not seeing my Regina, my brother, my children, or my Brock family, but my heart is learning to be okay temporarily living in multiple places at once as we look forward to eternity together!
A massive shoutout to the two precious families that sent me with an extra bag (and $ to add it to my ticket) full of our wishlist of needs and wants - what a thoughtful, unique blessing from dear friends! I am supremely thankful to live in the time of air-travel that makes a quick round-trip visit a possibility (when I’m well enough). I am profoundly moved by the example that the One-Way-Missionaries of long ago set as they packed their belongings in their own coffins to move overseas for the sake of the gospel – they waved goodbye to their loved ones knowing that they’d never see them again in this life.
Even though I get to see my family once every few years, it is still hard to say goodbye. The goodbyes get harder as time goes on. So, as I say goodbye, I am choosing to surrender my life, take up my cross, and follow Him joyfully. The gospel compels us to lay down our lives so that the world may know that God came to earth to die in our place so that we can know Him and be saved from sin and death. There is only one way to God. Jesus is the way. Jesus is better than life!
“Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.”– Charles Spurgeon