Ecc. 3:1-8 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
vs. l1b-12 "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live"
Two weeks from tomorrow, our family will be leaving Costa Rica permanently and returning to the United States. We have tried our best to inform everyone that we know, but we are aware that we might have missed some people. Please accept our sincere apologies. We are doing our best to leave things in the best order for our missionary agency; it's not easy to "just leave" a 7-acre property and we have never been people to leave things "undone". We haven't even found the time to put a letter out through the agency with a two-week team of 34 people here at the end of January, and then every weekend at the camp being booked; let alone the little "repairs" we in good conscience cannot leave unattended!
There are so many issues that went into making this decision, and the decision was not an easy one. Many, many months of prayer went into it on our part, and with the prayer support of some close family members because our decision is not based on lack of financial support which often sends many missionaries home. Our decision is based on exhaustion even after having been home for a six-month furlough.
There are so many challenges to living on the mission field! So many are difficult to even put into words or unless you have actually lived the life of a missionary yourself, for people to grasp. There are some issues that go without saying because they are obvious; establishing close relationships is difficult with language barriers and the obvious cultural barriers, and this is painful if you are a "people person" like me (Sherri). Growing up kids on the mission field has it's own set of unique needs with our kids struggling to identify which country is called "home". Now that Heather is "home", we find that we were ill-prepared for the transition struggles that she would endure when we returned to the field as a Missionary Kid in the States; her friends have moved on in the four years that she has been in that "foreign land", she feels isolated and alone as few understand in her peer group her experiences of living abroad and serving the Lord. She recently wrote on her Facebook, "my Grandma has more of a social life than me". The reality of this culture is that even Christian value systems are at opposite poles to each other. On any given day just "doing" the administration of the camp (building permits, taxes, legal issues and banking) can be logistically exhausting and time consuming, often driving an hour and a half away for documents, standing in long lines for hours only to be told that we were told wrong, are in the wrong place, that more steps need to be done and to come back another day altogether, let alone just trying to maintain our families needs! This has been our reality the last four years, and some of it we have been able to adapt too. Most all of it, we have grown weary of and after four years on the field have decided we are not cut out for this in the longer term.
Does it mean that we would change any of it over the last four years? No! We are so extremely thankful to God for these experiences, for the things He has had to painfully change in us to serve here this long! On the contrary, we feel better equipped to serve Him. But God also calls us to serve our family before others.
How can you pray for us? We return to the U.S. on March 8. We have no jobs and our last support check will be for the month of March. God has placed eternity deep in our hearts and we don't know what He wants us to do, but we know we want to serve Him at home after some period of rest. Pray that we will hear His voice clearly. We are staying on with Global Outreach Mission as Representatives, going on short-term teams as God allows; Kyle already signed up for the January 2013 short-term team to Costa Rica and Heather may return in May 2012 to help with a medical team!
Thank you to all those who have prayed for our family and financially supported us. Thank you for serving alongside of us here in Costa Rica because without each of you, we would have never been able to be here!
There will be more posts once we arrive home! To God be the Glory for ALL THAT HE HAS DONE!!
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