Home sweet home.

Well, hello, blog folks.  It's been a while.

Jack and I are settled back into life in Lupeni, after a 5-week jaunt back to the U.S. for Christmas, New Year's, and a lot of catching up with family and friends.  I always wish I was more alert during these trips, that I would write more and spend more time reflecting, staring out windows, praying.  It never happens.  My journal lies neglected in the bottom of my suitcase, its paltry 18 ounces a waste of space in my always-overstuffed baggage.  My brain goes on vacation whenever I am alone, along with the rest of my body, which uses jet lag as a convenient excuse to take naps whenever and wherever I am.  And my heart?  I don't even know how to answer that one.  It gets filled to bursting by long, funny, honest, open talks with friends that last late into the night.  It gets squeezed and encouraged and buoyed by good sermons and concerts and all the riches that feed it in our crowd of smart, engaged, middle-class, English-speaking, Jesus-loving friends.  And then it gets crushed, with little ragged pieces pulled off the edges, when we say our last goodbyes to so many people, yet another time.  Clenching back tears as we hug on the sidewalk, mind already racing ahead to something else because this heart of mine simply can't take saying goodbye to so many people it loves, so many times.

I wouldn't trade it, of course.  It's not even an option to not try to do this -- to not try to still love so many people in Iowa and Michigan and Ohio (and other places too, that's where they're concentrated), even while we spend 11 months of the year trying to love so many people here in Lupeni.  It's worth it, infinitely worth it.  I will chew on these conversations with friends for the next six months, still contemplating the wonder of knowing and being known so deeply and so kindly.  Still sucking out the marrow of the wisdom in our friends' words.  I will miss you all horribly, when I take the time to sit and reflect, stare out windows, and pray.  (And that does happen here, somehow.)

But even so, it feels right to be here.  It feels Good to be back, even if the friendships are fewer and our ability to connect deeply in Romanian is so much more stifled than it is in English.  Oddly enough, I don't feel lonely here.  We have friends here, people we love and who love us, and we're delighted to be back to them, too.  And we are buoyed by this great cloud of witnesses who hugged us on snowy sidewalks, kissed our frozen cheeks, and sent us back here for another year.