June 2011        

Our house echoes. There is nothing left but our carry-on baggage, the cat, and the last few things to give away. It is kind of like a person who has died. Their soul has gone on and there is nothing left but the empty shell.  This shell which will, in time….less time than elsewhere because of the rain, the humidity, the termites……will be no more. That is true of all physical things. I remember hearing a sermon by Pastor Renton Talbot in Umhlanga, South Africa about placing our trust and our energies into things. His words have stayed with me over the years….. He said that 500 years from now, even just maybe a 100, these ‘things’ that have occupied our time and energy will be no more…they will have aged, deteriorated, ended up in a dump……our lives are a passing fantasy when it comes to possessions. We need to look at what it is that really matters.

As we depart D. R. Congo, we take with us all the memories, the soul of what has been our home for so many years, along with 11 trunks of “stuff”. Sixteen years in Congo…and 11 years at TASOK in Kinshasa. Cassie was two when we first arrived in then Zaire…..all four of our kids grew up here, went to school, graduated and now have moved from this place into adulthood and college.

We take with us the memories and leave an empty shell. We leave in the morning for our flight out of Congo…back to the US for a whirlwind time of deputation. Our children have all grown up. Bill and I will return again in August to the African continent where we first met as a couple. It will be once more just the two of us.

Our lives and our children’s lives are in God’s hands to continue in other places.

Our house echoes.

Hebrews 11:13-16

¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

¹⁴ For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.

¹⁵ And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.

¹⁶ But now they desire a better [country], that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.