Prayer Letter Extras

Are we home yet ???

We just drove down to Florida to visit with family and supporting churches.  We visited with several supporters on the way down, staying in three different homes during the trip.  At one of these stops, we drove up the the house where we were staying after meeting with a small group.  Karis looked up and said "We're home". 

I got a chuckle out of that one.  We were just there for one night - not exactly "home"!  But it brought up a good question.  Where exactly is our "home".  Most of our stuff is set up in our apartment in Italy.  That is what we officially consider our residence.

But then again, we are living in Pennsylvania for six months.  So I guess that is "home" too. 

It can be hard to have two homes.  You can not take everything with you when you go from one home to the other.  So we have lots of stuff stored in the attic at Scott's mom's home which we try to pull out when we are here.  It gets hard to remember what is where sometimes.

And it certainly was not very fun to have to set up a new home when we arrived in the US in October.  Especially when we are just there for six months. 

And then there is the travel we have to do for home ministry.  We have slept in quite a few beds and dragged suitcases in and out of several different houses.  While we greatly appreciate the hospitality and enjoy staying in people's homes - we find ourselves looking forward to getting "home".

But maybe the unsettled nature of our situation is a good thing.  I think we all have a tendency to get too settled in our lives here when our real home is waiting for us in Heaven.  While it is nice to "settle in", we have to keep in mind that we are not really home yet.  We have to be careful not to put too much work into our temporary homes here instead of sending shipments ahead to our real home.

So - let's not say "We're home!" too soon.  We are still travelling!