Skip to main content

Sanity

Mostly for this blog I wanted to write about nutrition and exercise.

This one.  Hmm, maybe not so much.

Folks, I am losing my sanity.

Since June 19th, we have been living out of suitcases.

That's 136 days, friends.

A lot of days.

I'm not even sure how many different beds we have slept in since we left our home.

At each new place we visit, Andrew asks "Is this our new home?"

Oh buddy.

Andrew and Natalie's favorite game to play is "let's fly to Kenya in a plane".

Andrew asks us frequently when we are going to go back home.

I answer him with we are praying right after Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then we will be back home.

But, what if it's delayed more than that?

When we were in Charlotte for a debrief time with our sending organization, we learned we have significant more monthly financial support to raise.  With that, we cannot purchase our plane tickets to return home until we hit 90% of our support needed.

So, I am telling my son after the holidays like we originally planned and I just don't know.

I am losing my sanity.

Living out of a suitcase and not being home for 136 days now is just nuts.

I don't know of any other profession (although I'm sure there are ones out there) that have you leave your home and job for 6 months at a time to travel around.  This is one part of our job that I dislike.

I love seeing our friends and family.  It has been so incredibly sweet to catch up with folks.  I can't even describe how lovely it has been.  We have felt so loved and cared for, had amazing talks with friends, and our kids have enjoyed new things in the States.

And...I am longing to be back in Kenya in one place and into a routine.

You know when you go on vacation and are so excited for the time away but by the end you are just ready to be back home?

That's me.  Well, that's my whole family.

In the meantime, we are working at raising the remaining funding we need to head back to Nairobi.  We have been encouraged the past couple of weeks at how God is just moving and raising these funds.  It's been amazing to watch.

We long to see how our friends are doing back at BlueSky.  How has Sunday's at Six been going (our discipleship group)?  There's a core group of guys that Kyle mentors weekly...we want to see them face to face and see how they are really doing.  I miss my ladies at the grocery store and market and our talks.  My weekly Bible study group of ladies...oh man...that time is so precious to me and it's been hard to be away during this fall study.

Sigh.

All this to say, there are moments (ok, many moments) where I desire to be in one place and have a routine.  I probably feel a bit more of this with caring for our kids mainly and knowing how much of a factor stability is for them.

And tying this in with nutrition and exercise...being back home and having my normal routine again of working out and eating foods that our family is used to will be so good.  Being gone for this long just doesn't make me feel like myself and that's no fun.

In the meantime, we are praying for the remaining funding, sharing our ministry with folks, and asking for new partners in our work.

And, I am also working on trying not to lose too much of my sanity.

I need a bit of it to take care of my family daily! :)  Well, that, and good amounts of coffee.  And, most of all, Jesus.  He's got this.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Just a continuation; not a resolution

A New Year.  A New You. It's a pretty popular phrase right now.   It's a great time to start fresh for the new year.  Make promises to yourself.  Set goals.  Dream big.   I actually have never really made resolutions for any new year.  Maybe when I was in high school but I don't remember them and I don't remember sticking to them.   When I was thinking about upcoming goals for myself for 2015 - I was relieved that I wasn't making a new resolution.  Yet I was just continuing what I've been doing this past year.   I don't like to make new resolutions.  Well, I should be specific.  I don't like to start something new on a popular day that everyone else is.  I'd rather start something on just a normal day.  Seems less pressure.  Maybe it's just my personality.    (And in writing that I realized that I picked today to start a new blog.  Ha.) But, for all purposes, it's not to...

100

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life. I hit a milestone I waited a long time for: 100 pounds lost. It's still quite "unfathomable" that I hit that but yet - it's completely "fathomable". I tend to be one to shy away from saying "yea, I did that!  rock on!" But, I did!  I can be proud of this!  I worked hard for this. I changed my lifestyle to one that is better than anything else in my past.  I took control of my health and I believe I changed my families health for the better and for our lifetime. I am very proud. The past couple weeks as I approached getting close to hitting this mark (and I'll be honest - I stayed in between 99 and 100 pounds lost for a bit over a week and I'll just say that was one of the hardest weeks for me because I was so close yet so far away!) I started to work on a list of "100 ways life is different/things I have observed with now losing 100 pounds". (Also, shout out to my h...

Eating well is KEY

The way I started to focus on a healthier lifestyle was through trying to clean up my eating first. I lowered the amount of cokes I was drinking and then lowered how many chips (french fries) I was eating. SLOWLY (and I emphasis that word) I made changes to a healthier lifestyle. I started to purchase more fresh produce for the house….instead of chocolate. Things like that. Nothing was done overnight.  I don't think that would have worked for me at all.  It's just not my personality. My friend/trainer/nutritionist, Stephanie, taught me a ton about nutrition.  I read everything she sent to me on eating clean. It all just clicked with me. Then I watched a couple nutrition/food documentaries and those educated me as well. After watching "Fed Up" our family cut out sugar.  That was one that was almost an overnight thing…a couple items took longer..but for the most part after watching the documentary, we went through our house and cleaned up our eating e...