It is with a bit of dread (honestly, always honest here) that we welcome our student body back tomorrow. Our eighty candidates will be joined by another 240 boys and girls and the hectic pace will begin again. Have our lifestyle changes, our preparations, our prayers, our plans . . .been enough??

My heart is fearful of more chaos and more just-getting-by, but I have some excitement too. I’m excited to see students come back. I’m excited by how much most of them look forward to the restart of the term, just as they looked forward to going home for their term break. I have been working on re-opening our CSB school library and it is almost ready for use with a contained book room and a separate reading area for candidate students. I think students will feel loved and cared for by that space and the improved access to textbooks. We are also working on some changes to student discipline which may just add more work but could end in some positive changes to the environment. I’m excited to work with our sponsored students, and excited to review the s3 students community service work.

Meanwhile my kids and most of the staff kids have one more week of school break and so that, for me, means one more week of vigilance and hosting many many children each and every day. I am so thankful for my kids’ friendships - a truly miraculous answer to prayer. But it is a LOT of work to facilitate these friendships, to watch over the dangers introduced into my kids lives, to help interpret between languages and cultures and give good boundaries to all. I am tired from it and perhaps resentful so I need God’s reminders that this is what I asked Him for.

David and I have been spending a lot of time looking at money, upcoming projects and the future of Christ School in terms of the quality of academics and the sustainability of the finances. No big announcements yet, but we see God moving and teaching us and we continue to mull and pray over the possibilities for next year.
And we miss Luke. Dinner table discussions at our house have centered around when our kids might go to boarding school in Kenya; they think it sounds cool. Meanwhile I am fighting just to try to relinquish them the little bit I have to for allow all the cool African relationships that they are developing. And I ask God that He wouldn’t demand more of them than I am able to give.

I feel fragile. Luke leaving; we all face the reality that this life is HARD, that is requires death and separation and pain. The Massos in their final month count down here and every day brings reminders that our great, great friends are leaving. Shut down, my heart says, don’t be close to the people that you so easily lose. A great friend in America emailed me today to tell me she is pregnant for the second time and I just cried. I miss HER and miss so badly being somewhere where my thoughts and experiences and heart seem to make some sense. Today I am badly homesick - for Papa Johns pizza and Snickers bars and girl-talk and Mariners Church and one hundred other things. So pray for my husband who is balancing my teetering emotions along with the weight of the school and what seems to be a broken finger from a fun game of football today. No dull moments.