Home

Perhaps it's the wrapping up of the year. Perhaps it's the slow nights we're trying to carve out to celebrate advent. Perhaps it's been a long, hard many weeks of sickness and and weariness. Any of those alone makes us stop and reflect. So, here we are, facing our third Christmastime in Kenya, feeling thoughtful and reflective about the bigger things in life. The things that matter.

You, the readers of this blog, have walked with us through so much over our time here. It's been amazing how strong the bonds have been, and how we have needed your thoughts and prayers. But never more so then in the last couple of weeks. So we thank you again and are full of awed praises that Cecily has recovered. (If you're interested in the details of what we went through with her, please click here.)

Coming home from the hospital with her was a fun experience. When we got to our house, Cecily ran from room to room giggling. At first we thought that she was just happy to be home, but then we realized what was really going on in her head:  she was looking for her sisters. She hadn't seen them in three days, and she missed them. Honestly it didn't matter where she was; her sisters and her family are home for her.

We've realized that we're the same way. Several different authors have written similarly, but I like James Baldwin's version from Giovanni's Room:  "Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition." For our family, the irrevocable condition is being in relationship with each other, loving each other through hard times, and trying to bring joy to others. That's what we think is important and what we work toward and for. It's not irrevocable because we never get upset at each other; it's irrevocable because we all will always love each other, regardless of what is happening or where we are. Our family is irrevocable.

Many of you have heard that we are leaving Rosslyn after this school year. It was a very difficult decision, and one that we're still struggling with. We don't feel like we're done here, but we miss friends and family deeply and have obligations that we have to take care of back in the States. We've really struggled with leaving this place in which we've made a home, and especially the close friendships that we've developed. We are going to desperately miss those people who have become our family here.

However, we know that home for us isn't a specific place. Home isn't tied to a locale. Home is our family. Home is knowing that we will always support and love each other as we seek to help others. This is what allowed us to move away from California in the first place, the state where we had lived the vast majority of our lives, to come to Nairobi. Funny that we needed to leave what we had thought was our home to realize that home is a much bigger idea.

So we're going to be going through transition again. We've already started to pack things to send back with some friends visiting us at Christmas, and we're paring down again. Do we think that we're done living overseas? Honestly we don't know. We do know that if we do it again, it'll be a lot less scary, a lot less nerve-wracking knowing that we've done it before and been, we'd like to think, successful.

At the moment, though, we're trying to start saying goodbye to this place that we love and that we don't want to leave. We don't know where we're going to be living in 7 months, where Claire and Ainsley will be going to school, where Kirk will be working, what Audrey will be involved with, what house Cecily will be trying to destroy (but we do know that she'll try to destroy it!). We do know that our home is irrevocable, and that wherever we land, we'll reconnect with loved ones and start again to find people who will become part of our home.