missing

::: missing home is an unavoidable part of our work in japan...no wonder the word "miss" constitutes the first four letters of "missions"...

...in recent weeks, claire has been thinking a lot about the varied contours and contexts of "being home"...as a general rule, life moves so fast...but when the lives of our family and friends move fast without us being there, we sink a bit...

...in the midst of that sentiment, so timely have been friends' visits and several unexpected care packages, chock full of grace and goodies...these extensions of home buoy us both against the sinking feeling of missing home...

...for me, i process the reality of missions work differently than claire, but we try to work through it together with communication and encouragement...today, i told claire that at two distinct points, i thought about home:

• the first thought: claire and i are sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate 10 freeway, heading west, somewhere between western blvd. and fairfax blvd...it's summertime hot...

• the second thought: claire and i are sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on route 1, heading north away from boston, somewhere around saugus...it's wintertime wet...

..."pretty strange," said claire, noting the shared congestive element...

...yet, as i explained to her, the aforementioned thoughts warmed my heart with that homecoming tickle because in boston and in the five months we were in los angeles before we left for japan, (a) claire and i had great conversations in the car during traffic, and (b) being stuck in traffic usually meant that we were driving out to spend time with family or friends...

...coping daily with this aspect is part of the challenge of our missions work...

:::