A Joyful Keeper

And all through the house,

Nothing was left,

Not even a mouse…..

Alhamdulillah!!! Our old house is EMPTY!!!!! Oh, we had reached the end of our tether. On Friday I called a cleaning service up to find out how much it would cost to get the house cleaned for us so that we could just hand back the keys to the rental agency. I had to politely decline when I he told me it would cost between $350 and $600!!!! My next option was to find someone who did it on the side and who could just come in and help us….

Well, God is good. He knew that we were just about had it! Robyn rang yesterday morning to tell us she just talked to someone who cleaned houses for $12.50 an hour…. and were we interested?! I hadn’t even told her that I called this other place the day before…. So we told her yes, we were interested… and met the cleaning lady at the old house at 10am. We all worked alongside her, including the kids going around with dry and wet rags dusting the kickboards and cleaning spots off the walls! We were done around 3pm, with a lunch break in the middle….

It was such a help just to have this sweet lady there to help us with our last spurt of energy! And do you know what? Today, Sunday, we are really going to have a day of REST!!!

Never has a move been so tiring for us. I think it is probably because it was so soon after the move back to Australia, and we are still all trying to adjust. My dh for the first time is realizing how hard it is to fit back in after being away for two years. Having lived in a “difficult” country, makes the change even harder. I know all the down pat answers about settling back into your own culture…. and really, there is only one answer - time. Over time we will get used to things again. Over time we will feel like we are really “home” again. Time is the only thing that will do it, after the initial excitement about being back has worn off and reality hits in.

Reality is that we may never see some of our friends in the Middle East again. Reality is Elizabeth crying because she misses her “best friend in the whole world”. Reality is watching your own children struggle to want to be in two places at the same time. Reality is that next week we will go and catch up with some friends who live over there and are just back for Christmas. And that when we visit these people we will get “homesick” for the life over there. Reality is also that it was the right time for us to come back……

I was thinking about the fact that last Christmas and this Christmas are just going to be soooooo totally different! Last year we had all the same decorations up. The same tree, the same nick-nacks, but a different house. We were in a large house with high walls all around us. Now we are in a small house with land around us as far as the eye can see. Last year the mosque woke us up at dawn, to call us to prayer. This year the birds wake us up and call us to prayer. Last year the children and I had to call a taxi whenever we went out, and I had to cover. This year, we can just hop in the car and dash down to the shops to get a last minute present. Last year there were no decorations in the shops, no Christmas music, no sign whatsoever that it might be that time of the year. This year we’ve been bombarded for a few months now, that it is time to spend up big for the “silly season”!! Ah, the differences!!!

I do believe that God has called us back here, even though it is difficult to let go of the past. The children are at the age and stage where they need to be in their own culture, so that they have a sense of identity. I don’t have that sense…. I’ve lived in too many places where I didn’t truly belong. Australia is the first place I really belonged, and even then my slight American twang puts me out of place here! While I know that “this world is not our home…” I would like the children to know that they are Australians, and feel like they belong here.

And so it is almost Christmas, …. and what have we done? Another year over… a new one about to begin….. We have done a lot this year. We have had a lot of changes, and I know that we are all feeling it so much. I am hoping and praying that next year we can be settled. We need to be. I said to my dh that I needed a Sabbatical next year….! I don’t know what kind of Sabbatical, but I sure need one!!! God has been speaking to me about that, and I will share about it soon, but for now…. I am so thankful that a week before Christmas the old house is empty and clean (we just need to get the carpet cleaners in and we can then hand back the keys..) and we can now concentrate on preparing for this special time of the year. Up till now we’ve had the house hanging over our heads and the fact that we needed to finish it. Now I am ready to wrap presents, redecorate the tree (um, er, no, the soft toys were needed to play with apparently!), bake… and ok, unpack just a few boxes too!

We went to church this morning. We’ve been to church three times since we got back, … which means that we’ve been to church three times in the past 3 years! Not very good attendance, I’m afraid! Seriously though, we are looking for a church now that we’re back from the Middle East and want to take our time. We won’t ever find a “perfect” church, because there isn’t one! But we need to find one where we can fit it as a family.

There are a few funny things about church after not having gone for so long. First of all you don’t know any of the songs. Except for the one during the children’s talk which is “Jesus Loves the Little Children”….and which your eldest son is too embarrassed to sing because it is a little kids one (yes, he’s at that age…!) Then it is all the “rituals” which were once so familiar and normal, and you now look at with different eyes. At the last church service our youngest son wanted to know what the bags were for that they were passing around Uh oh, we’re bringing our kids up as heathens! Thankfully we will get back into the swing of things and get to know people and the customs again. It is almost like adapting to a different culture.

When we were overseas we adapted to the culture there as much as we could. We were patient with things that we thought were silly. We were willing to learn. When we come back to our own culture, we often think it will be easy, we’ll just slot back in. But no… things have changed while we were gone. Someone is sitting in our spot at church! Not just that, but they have changed the seating arrangement. The songs are new! The worship is done differently! Why are they reading out the prayers instead of just praying ad lib? I can’t find the toilet anymore!! How easy it would be to criticize.

We need to treat our re-entry into our home country with as much patience as we treated our adaptation into the new culture we just came from. After a while we will no longer look confused when we walk into a shop and see the huge variety of choices. After a while we will no longer look confused at church when we sing and partake of the Lord’s Supper (do we eat and drink together, do we wait…?). After a while we will no longer look at the money and wonder what the 20 coin looks like. After a while we will learn the songs. After a while we will make new friends. After a while we might even dress like everyone else And then the culture that we adopted over the past years will slowly fade away…..