WHAT I THINK

I think, though I can't be sure, that Anna and her team have now left their ministry site in South Western Tanzania on their way to Nairobi, Kenya. I can't guarantee that, but since it took them 50 hours to get there by bus last time (when it was supposed to be nearly half that), I have a feeling they'll give themselves plenty of travel time to get to the airport. Yep, the two months is almost up and she'll be home this weekend.

In some ways this time has seemed so very long. In other ways, it is hard to believe it is coming to an end. For her sake, I've wanted it to last a long time. I know that she's loved her team and been a part of some amazing God adventures. But for our sakes, we're glad she's heading home. We've truly missed her. Even her brother David, who at fifteen isn't given to spoutings of sentimentalism, told me over the weekend, that he's begun to miss her.

Of course, we've got to squeeze a whole lot of talking and laughing and loving into the first couple of weeks of August as she'll be moving to New Orleans two weeks after getting Stateside. Then the missing will start all over again. I'm afraid that the whole saying goodbye to my kids and dealing with their absence is something I've just got to ask God to help me deal with because, short of discovering a time machine, there's no cure. With seven kids growing up, there's just a whole lot of this in store for me in the years to come.

Okay, before I've worked myself into a good cry, let me tell you what I'd like you to pray about.

Please pray for Anna and her team as they travel. Pray they'll be safe, be blessed, and be a blessing to all those encounter.

Pray for them as they go through reverse culture shock and adjust back to life in America.

Pray for them as they look to the future and walk out the plans the Lord has for them. Some of them are going to be making huge changes. Some of them are facing hard decisions. All of them now have a different outlook than what they left with and that means a different future than maybe they had planned for themselves.

Pray for their families and friends back in the States, that they'll have grace and understanding as they welcome back Expedition members who aren't the same as when they left two months ago.

And pray that we'll help make Anna's arrival and then last two weeks in her childhood home what she needs it to be. After she leaves for college, we'll be moving to inner-city Jackson and she'll never be coming home again to our farm. Graceland will no longer be sitting on the corner of two narrow, country roads. Graceland will then be on the corner of two city streets lying in the shadow of the capitol building's golden dome.

Lots of changes, lots of happenings, lots of things to talk to the Father about.

Thanks.