BUSY has been the word of the month for us.  Last week we were at a conference in a nearby town, and the internet connection there was this side of horrible.  Then we left for a trip to the closest country in order to renew our visas, and while it’s fun, it’s not relaxing.  And then yesterday, we headed to the coast about an hour away to go to a baptism, which was extremely cool.

Not that I’m complaining.  We had a great time at the conference; it’s always fun to be around other English speakers and to get refreshed and renewed about our calling.  Chickpea LOVED being with kids all week–I felt like I barely saw her.  She sat at the kids table in the dining hall where we ate, and other than setting up her meal, she was fine eating on her own.  It was heaven.

But it’s funny, being at a conference like this–I soak up all the ammenities we don’t normally get (worship times, conversations with other English-speaking moms), but I leave reminded of how tough it is here sometimes.

I don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining.  Really.  We love what we do, and we know we’re called here.  But it’s just not easy to be so far from family and friends.  Sometimes when you go to get your batteries recharged, it’s not until the recharging that you find out how drained they are.

So we’re back now, slowly getting back to real life–we were both hurting this morning, feeling like we needed another three hours of sleep.  Garbanzo got about four naps the entire week we were gone, so he’s been exhausted.

I have a feeling this week will be a catch-up week.  Back to setting up the office, working on website stuff, climbing Mt. Laundry, cleaning the house that somehow got turned upside-down even though we weren’t here, and guessing how long we’ll last with the windows open and the AC off.

A few Chickisms — since it’s been awhile

At the conference hotel, they aren’t turning on the air conditioning until June 1 (par for the course in this country).  So we slept with the fans going and the windows open.  The only problem with this was the lounge singer that appeared from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. every night, right by the pool.  The pool was right outside our window.

And I’ll be frank.  He was NOT good.  He sang a trio of the local language, French, and English, and slurred most of the times.  I think he was drunk, and serenading fellow drunks.  It would be hilarious if we weren’t already so tired.  There’s only so many nights I can hear Dancing Queen.

The first night, Chick woke up crying.  She was sitting up in bed, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said, “There’s a scary man in our room, and he’s singing to us, and it’s really bad, and I want him to stop.”

I wanted him to stop, too.

A few days later, the ferryboat to the nearby country was PACKED.  Packed with tourists, Europeans mostly, headed to their holidays.  Most Europeans speak English.  Most also smoke (or so it seems).

We were standing near an older woman who lit up, and Chick said, loudly, “Mom, that lady has a smoker.  She must want to die.”

She stepped away soon after.

And finally, last night over dinner, we were all quietly eating.  Out of nowhere, Chick said, “So.  It was a bummer that I wasn’t baptized today.”

We talked about it quite a bit that day, what it meant and why her friends were choosing to.  She kept saying she wanted to be baptized too, since she loves and follows Jesus.  But she still didn’t quite have that understanding.

But how do you say no to a little girl that really does love Jesus?  It was hard.  Thankfully, the ocean was calling her name, and she was out swimming five minutes later, happy as a clam.

So our flights.  They went well.  Thank you for praying.

Some highlights:

Play: Our good friends Jonathan and Kerin, who used to live in Austin but currently live in Columbia, came up to Charlotte and hung out with us during our four-hour layover.  It was so fun.  Our kids got to run ragged with them, and we actually got out of the airport and hit up a local Starbucks.  Kerin brought crafts for the kids to do while the grown-ups chatted, caught up, and talked shop about living internationally.  It was truly the highlight of our flight back.  Thanks again, friends.  We were blessed and refreshed.

Sleep: Shockingly, both kids slept a few hours.  On our 10-hour leg, they both slept about the last two hours.  The good part of that is that, well, they slept.  The not-so-great part is that both kids fell asleep with their heads on my right leg – Garbanzo with his legs across me and onto his daddy’s lap, and Chickpea going the other direction, with her feet smooshed up to the nicest stranger I’ve ever met on a plane.  They fell asleep when I wasn’t in the entirely most comfortable position, so my back and legs were killing me by the end of the flight.  I also had to have my hand just-so, so that Garbanzo didn’t roll right off onto the floor.  Entertainment, indeed.

Mr. Nice Stranger: Chickpea was sandwiched between me and the nicest stranger ever.  I think he was probably a grandfather, because he took one look at the four of us sharing his row in the middle aisle, and said, “Hey!  Great!  Traveling with kids is wonderful,” and then proceeded to help us out when the meals came, blow it off when Chick kicked him repeatedly in her sleep (see above), and generally smiling at us as if to reassure us that we weren’t annoying him at all.  So he was either St. Nick in disguise, or he was smoking something.  Either way, it worked in our favor.

Luggage: All bajillion of our bags and boxes arrived – not without serious hassle, though.  There was a sweet-but-rather-naive woman at the Austin airport who checked us in, and told us she was not allowed to check our bags all the way to our final destination, because we were flying over two days.  We tried to explain to her the magic of time zones, that most international flights span more than one day when you move ahead with the time change.  But she adamantly said that her computer would not allow her to check our bags all the way, and so we’d need to claim them and recheck them in Munich.

There were several hassles with this.  The obvious one is that the amount of our bags covered five luggage carts, and there were two adults.  So we had to load all the bags ourselves (we had my parents with us in Austin, both to help with the manual labor and to entertain the kids), and then inch our way to customs.  You have to keep your bags in sight the whole time, so Kabob would go about 20 feet with two carts while I stayed with the other three and the kiddos, and then run back to get two more carts.  I would push the final cart along with Chickpea in her brother’s stroller, and with Garbanzo on my back (thank you, again, New Parents class, for that Ergo).  And over and over it would go, until we finally rechecked our bags.

The other issue with this is that we had to enter Germany in order to get our bags – thus waiting to get our passports stamped – and then we had to leave Germany after rechecking our bags in order to get our last flight.

And of course, there was the fun of waiting in line to check our bags again – and unlike Austin, this line was verrrry long.  So I waited off to the side with four of the luggage carts and the kids, who were mildly stir-crazy by now, and Kabob slithered his way through the line with one of the carts.  When he made it to the front,  the three of us bumbled our way up to the front from the side, hoping that our pathetic looks would garner up some sympathy from the nice Lufthansa people.  It mostly worked.

But our biggest concern was that we’d have to pay for extra luggage twice.  This amount of extra luggage going internationally is not cheap.  We’d already paid a pretty penny, so we were praying they woudn’t hit us twice.  Thankfully, a wonderful Lufthansa woman in Charlotte couldn’t believe the woman in Austin’s lack of knowledge about handling international flights, and printed us a receipt that assured the people in Munich we’d already paid them for extra luggage.  Because of this, we didn’t have to pay double.  Thank you, Lord.

So after all this, all our bags arrived, and we are now home, having unpacked about half of them.  We anticipate this taking awhile, but since we’re here, we’re in no hurry.  Well, I’m in a hurry because I want to snuggle in to our home, and four months of living out of a suitcase bit me hard with the nesting instinct.  But for once, we’re not in anybody’s way.

Out of half, this was all that’s been damaged out of our bags so far:


It could be worse. The red “puddle” was peeled off from the inside of the plastic box it was shipped in, and the paper was the instructions for the nail kit.  And this was a freebie from blogger’s swag for Simple Mom.

Please pray for jet lag recovery, as the kids always have a harder time with this than the grown-ups. Last night, Chickpea climbed in to bed with us and talked pretty much all night, about who-knows-what.

Oh, and this last photo during our layover in Munich is for MeMee. Get it?  Let us know if you don’t.

The two main things we’ve taken away from our time in the States:

• from now on, we will visit more frequently,
• and we will make those frequent visits shorter.

This length of time away from home and routine is just too insane with little kids.  We are so ready to get back to our own home, and we are sorely missing any semblance of a routine.  Life has been go-go-go the moment we hit American soil.  We’re very much looking to slow down.

The general plan is to come back to the U.S. in the summer of 2010 for 6-8 weeks, and then perhaps every summer after that.  We’re keeping that open-handed, of course.

Please be praying for our final hours here in the States, that loose ends will get tied up nicely, and that those things that just don’t need to happen will get dropped off the list, guilt-free.  And please be praying for our delightful 21-hour flight with our two small children who don’t sleep on airplanes. We’ve done this many times, and we’ll continue to do this many times, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

If you want some specifics, you can pray for:

• good goodbyes
• sleep, both for the next few days and on the plane
• no lost luggage
• pleasant children
• gracious people sitting near us on the plane, and
• safe arrival

We’ve loved seeing so many of you during our time stateside. We were pleasantly reminded of how sweet it is when we can pick up with friends right where we left off, no matter how long it’s been.  That encourages us to keep on keeping on – more than you know.

Come see us anytime.  We’ll leave the light on for you.