John-John and his iguana pal high-fiving each other at the Moscow zoo. We went earlier this week with our friends who left on Thursday for a year of Stateside Assignment (STAS) in Florida.
Our Sarah Beth with her friend, Sarah Beth. They call themselves SBSquared. What goofballs. This is also at the Moscow zoo.Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth. Psalm 124:8
It's funny how God answers our prayers sometimes. I prayed and prayed that July 4th would not be depressing. The first year we have not celebrated in the good ol' U.S.A., far away from home, without our traditional day at the pool with my parents and aunt and uncle...it had the makings of a depressing day of homesickness. Instead, Marc and the kids spent the day at an all-mission picnic (where Marc was the hero of the kickball game, at least according to him), and I stayed at home sick as a dog. See--I didn't have time to feel homesick. Prayer answered. I was too busy rocking back and forth in the fetal position from the pain of an ear infection that I let get out of hand because I just thought I had a clogged ear. Unfortunately, the pain radiating with every heartbeat down my neck and into my jaw declared that, indeed, there was an infection. I took augmentin and then penicillin, all to no avail. Luckily for me, my friend Frances called from the riverbed in Alabama yesterday and gave me the Russian name of a really high-powered antibiotic they prescribe in the U.S. Marc was kind enough to run to the pharmacy and pick it up, and after 1,000 mgs last night and another 1000 mgs this morning, I'm still in a lot of pain, but I can tell I'm the tiniest bit better. The screaming in my ear is down to a ringing, which isn't pleasant but is bearable. I'm hoping after another day today of light activity (I had no activity yesterday at all) that I'll be a lot better by tomorrow. There is something to be said for getting anything over the counter you want.
One thing I did do yesterday was talk to my parents and to my friend, Frances, and to my best friend, Tara. Frances is just one of those people who is a helper. She and her family are on STAS until September 1st, but she took the time on July 4th to call me and check in to see how we were handling our first Independence Day away from home. Frances has taken me places in her car, helped me with medications, and pitched in whenever help was needed. When our pipes burst and the kids were here with the neighbors screaming at them, it was her husband, Kris, who flew to the rescue. I look forward to them coming back in September, and spending time with them again. But one of the things that really hit me yesterday after talking to Tara was the kind of friendships I have formed in the last year, and how they really are God's fulfillment of the desires of my heart.
Tara and Matt and Marc and I met at candidate conference last April. We were in the same small group, which meant that we spent basically the whole time together. We also made other friends--Robert and Elaine, who are in Budapest--and we all just hit it off. It was one of those things where you are forced to be 100% real with people, because you're all in the same boat. Everybody is going to go through the interview, which is a little daunting, to be honest. Everybody is going to have to deal with medical stuff. Everybody is going to have to sign that paper that says the IMB doesn't negotiate with terrorists, and we want to go anyway. You're all there together. So I can honestly tell you that the weekend we all spent together was like friendship at hyperspeed. And I'm not that person. I'm not an open-up-and-talk-about-your-feelings kind of gal. I'm really not. So these friendships that had the stamp of eternity were kind of a shock to me.
Then we all went to FPO together. And we made more friends. There were the precious people in our quad--Darrell and Vicki, who are in Prague, Johann and Stacy and our precious baby Jack, who are in Prague, and Larry and Melissa, also in Prague, Greg and Barbara and their precious girls, in a place I can't mention, Shea and Rachel and Erin and Seba in Poland--precious, precious people to us. We spent hours together, playing, praying, worshiping, and just living together. I can't describe for you exactly what FPO is like, but it's an intense, draining time that you spend with people you really, really love. And our friendships just grew and grew and grew.
One of the great support pieces the IMB has put in place for us is these friendships. We talk often to these people from around the world, who share our heart, who know our warts (you can't live together that long and not show every fault you have), and who love us anyway. When Tara called yesterday, she didn't tell me how I should feel or tell me I was wrong or tell me I wasn't being very "Christian-ly"...she just let me talk and loved me and loved me and loved me. Then she got off the phone and prayed for me. And then she and her precious husband prayed for us together. Isn't that what real friendship looks like?
Several years ago, Marc and I lost a group of friends we had spent a great deal of time with. It was a terrible time, and something I don't want to rehash here for various reasons. But it occurred to me this morning that during that time we cried out again and again to God in our loneliness, praying for friendships that were real, that counted, that were without judgment attached, friendships we could feel so comfortable in that we could just be ourselves without fearing that we would be suddenly cut off because someone decided we weren't good enough to be friends with anymore. And He has answered that prayer in droves. My Daddy often comments that we sure do have a lot more social activities in Moscow than we ever had in Middleburg, and he's right. And without fail, every week since we've been here, we've talked to at least one of our "mission friends," people we love and who love us, whose friendship is invaluable to us, who are God's answer to our prayers all those years ago.
Never in my life did I imagine that my best friends would live in places like Prague and Brazil. Never did I imagine a world in which this blog would be read by people all over the world, because we have friends all over the world. God is funny and big and unpredictable. And though neither Tara nor I have found that one soulmate in the places where we serve, I think I can speak for both us when I say that we are forever grateful to a God who loves us enough to give us each other.
Well, I have been sitting up for a whole hour now, and the ringing in my ear is climbing back up to a scream, so I'm going to take that as a sign to lie back down for a while. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that if you are blessed enough to have a best friend you can give them a hug, and that you catch your ear infection before it turns into the roaring disaster that mine is. Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye
No comments:
Post a Comment