In the past six weeks, we have had a lot of transition and are now settling back in to our other home. We hope these photos will give you a clearer picture of where we are.

Sometimes it seems like you can do the same work from a distance. We’ve all been trying it. It appears to be working. We are getting things done and work is moving forward, in all sorts of ways. This is wonderful and a new normal for us all.

Yet, when you are able to be back doing the work in person again, things are different. For me, I am able to see, appreciate, and find missing parts and pieces that I didn’t realize were even missing from a distance.

This is a little bit what it was like when I went to church in person for the first time after the lockdown. Even though we were spread out and wearing masks, I hadn’t realized what a difference being together made, singing and listening, in the same space.

It is also a bit of what I’ve been experiencing as we are returning to Yaoundé and our work, in person. The reality of the various crisis situations around the country is much harder and more bleak than what I could hear or see from a distance. There are pieces of my life that are being revived, and I hadn’t even realized they had been dormant. I am able to see and appreciate things up close that I wasn’t able to from a distance.

From a distance, sometimes what seems to be is only part of the picture in reality.

Revelation 7:9 gives a picture of heaven and hope for all people:

“After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb” (NLT)

Everyone wants things that last. People don’t want temporary.

When we first arrived back in the USA the idea of temporary was constantly on my mind. I found myself saying “we don’t need that” to many things. We can get by without because we’ll just need to get rid of it soon.

Even our home is temporary. And tonight is the last time we’ll sleep in our rental house. The temporary is gone, its end is here.

And what begins now is just a new temporary.

We trade one for another.

Unlike some people who live overseas, we never live there permanently. We aren’t there to settle for generations. We aim to live fully in our host country, but the reality of our situation is that we can’t stay forever.

It’s through this lack of complete permanence that we know change is always coming.

When our plane lands and we unpack our bags another countdown clock will begin. Sometimes we know when that clock will reach zero, and sometimes we don’t. But it’s always ticking.

We want to believe we have permanence, but we’re all just aliens and strangers in this world. But one day we will find something permanent.