Missing....

I find that after 14 months, there are days that my heart is still so heavy. Moments where I really have to take a deep breath, to ( at times) hold back the tears, others to calm my spirit.
There are many nights I go try to go to sleep by closing my eyes and remembering.
Remembering the place my family and I called home , that was our home, for five years.
Sure, I miss our lovely friends. Friends from not only Spain , but all over the world! Our sharing of cultures, foods, meals, weekends, day trips, camping, going for picnics, etc..Missing them tells me how much we love them.

But I miss my little village. The way of life. The people, so many who were like family to us. From the mailman to the milkman who were in our everyday life. Arian's friends whom we had watched grow from little eight year old boys into young men. The searcher's of God's word and the lost ones. I love them and invested my heart into them. They are precious!

Missing,speaking Spanish, hearing Spanish, and concentrating so very hard on all the new words I needed to learn (daily) to survive!
Eating the fresh and wonderful Spanish food. Living in Spanish culture, enjoying Spanish traditions, the richness of family. And living each day to the fullest. Meal times lasting for hours, enjoying cafe con leche, as it was a daily event!
Sitting outside my balcony and watching my elderly Spanish neighbors get through day after day...Pablo taking out the trash, Maria Louisa cleaning the sidewalk. Day after day, after day.....
Hearing the Spanish children playing until 12 am.Playing futbol in the parque until it closed. Little ( and and big children) taking care of each other, and especially loving on small ones! Spaniards are a very physically affectionate groups of people, and that starts at a very young age. I do miss the way we would greet a total stranger with a kiss on each check.....

Even the heat! Can't believe I can even think, much less say that... It reached 128 two Augusts ago. Remembering the kiddos and I walking in the heat to the Kiosk, each day for bread and chupes before lunch. Walking everywhere. Riding the bus everywhere. Being out and about as a means of getting around daily, it was just a way of life.

The smell of the orange trees coming into blossom. Yet the streets being filled with trash, cigarettes, and grafiti. The dingy smell of the air of lingering cigarette smoke wherever we went.

Missing our local community. The swim teachers, futbol coaches, Sonja (Audrey's dance teacher,) the local shop owners, and doctors. A tight little village community, it was sweet. Tight, but much sweetness in that.

I just miss it...........
What was home, and "regular life" now is what I see on a post card, and I still grieve over it. Of course there were many many challenges, that goes unsaid! Life was not at all without stress.
But, simple, yes!

Who knows where God will take us next, or if He will. We are open to go and serve where He wants, and He knows it! But for now, I am called to be here and content.I am so grateful for our home, friends, and family here, yes...
But, my missionary heart longs and yearns........The people, the unreached, to live among them, be humbled by them, to serve God in that capacity, what a humbling honor.

Love,
Jenny