Filling In the Gaps

Furlough is going well. We've had some marvelous opportunities to reconnect with some people. Some of those we planned to visit, and many of those we have run into by "coincidence". If we haven't run into someone, that wasn't planned, it was probably just nearly impossible. I would imagine that most expatriates experience that during a visit home, because you can't see everyone in such a short window.

Some people may not know just what a furlough is. It's a military term actually, and for people who do any kind of work in another culture outside their own, it can be a very exhausting experience. And so another word for furlough is "rest", though one can only take so much resting before you get the jitters! Our rest has been a combination of reporting to churches that help support the work we do in Costa Rica, and spending as much time as possible with our families. Summer has been a great time for both. Now we're preparing to begin the school year (we'll home school our kids for a semester) and I hope to take a class also, if possible. Some travel still awaits us as we continue the work of telling all that we have seen God do, and some more good times with family are in the offing. But I'm confident that when December arrives, we'll be ready to "get back to work", i.e. return to Costa Rica and keep working there.

When you're on furlough, you hope to regain perspective on what you do and why. You also may have opportunity to do some work that you can't in your overseas routine. One thing I've been at work at lately is revamping our communication system, i.e. how we communicate with friends, family and churches so they can remember us and even pray for us. I hope to be able to not only do that, but to also perhaps revisit the last year in a sort of review. I didn't write much last year about what was going on, but maybe I can do that soon.