an overwhelmingly full year

This past year in the USA was overwhelmingly full.

Full of contrasts.

Full of God's blessings.

Full of fatigue.

Full of rich moments of spending time with people - new ones we met at churches, as well as old friends and of course family.

Full of trying to meet our children's needs. They were really struggling in many ways - with being in the US (which was so foreign to them), as well as dealing with some fears and anxiety stemming from some traumas they experienced while on the field.

Full of enjoying American conveniences, American restaurants, American roads (so smooth!), and American tv/ radio (so many choices!).

Full of missing Africa.

Some call this year "Furlough" (but it can't be.... it's not a furlough...it's not even remotely restful). Some call it "Home Assignment" (is it really home?), or "Ministry Partner Development" or "Support Discovery" or "Itineration". The last name might fit the best. We spent the entire year feeling like we were on the itineration trail. It is what it is.

Our year was spent in the following ways:

Visiting supporting churches and individual supporters - thanking them for their sacrificial and faithful support. Speaking in new churches - sharing our heart for missions and God's calling on our lives reaching international students and Third Culture Kids/ Cross Cultural Kids in Nairobi and serving as a youth pastor/ chaplain to a few hundred of them.

Reconnecting with family after being overseas for 4 years.

Driving 60,000 miles (30,000 together as a family, 30,000 Kevin alone). Plus 13 trips by air (when it was cheaper for Kevin to fly than to drive).

We based out of South Carolina (our "home" district in the A/G, as well as where Robin's parents live/ work at their mission headquarters) but we traveled all over the eastern US. Chalk it up to both of us being MKs and having lived in several places in the US, having friends and family living all over the US, and the fact that our supporting churches are as spread out as our family and friends (and then some....).



We traveled from SC to NY to MO to TX to IN to see family (and of course supporting churches) and everywhere in between.

The equivalent of those miles spent traveling is a total of 32 weeks (40-hour work weeks).

Then add the time for 120 missions services (anywhere from 3 minute "windows" to full-length sermons), individual meetings with pastors, and sectional & district councils. (Our headquarters strongly encourages missionaries to schedule 10-12 missions services per month while on "furlough".)

Add time for over 800 phone calls to schedule those missions services. (Nothing is booked for us - that is part of our job while on "furlough").

Add several hours each month for financial reporting to Headquarters.

Add time spent with our extended family (6 days here, 4 days there, 10 days here with a couple of missions services in the middle, 2 days there....you get the picture). We wanted quality time with family, but our schedule made it very challenging. We wanted our kids to reconnect WELL with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins and great-grandparents and even great-aunts and great-uncles! Thus the choice to home school so we could travel when we needed to and see relatives as much as possible.

Add homeschooling. (Robin is a trained teacher -- Secondary French -- so teaching elementary grades was a stretch for her.) The girls were in 3rd grade and 5th grade, and we often put it all in backpacks to take it on the road for weeks at a time!

Add a busy preschooler with no one to play with regularly. (We are grateful for the gifts that made it possible for us to have dvd players in the van for our 10 hour+ driving days... Jonathan watched Curious George while the girls and I worked on school. Then when the girls were done with school they got to watch too!)


Add moving into an empty apartment and searching for used or loaned furniture so we didn't have to live out of suitcases for a full year. After 3 months of living out of suitcases we were ready for shelves and drawers and beds!! (Thank you to our families and the pastors who beat the bushes to help us find so much of the furniture we enjoyed last year!!)

Add trying time be with close friends - trying to catch up after years of not seeing each other face to face. Of course some close friends we never got to see face-to-face. We still miss them!!

Are you tired yet? We were. This is not a gripe-session - it's just the plain facts.

Many people ask what we do all year... if a year is a nice amount of vacation time and if we feel rested yet. So we want you to know what our year looked like, and why we're so glad to finally be HOME back in Africa!!

(where of course, we miss things about America, but most of all our family and friends!)