Home

In the Pal tribe, there are no separate words for “house” and “home.” Saying to someone, “That is my house,” would be the same as saying, “That is my home.” But if I were to ask my Pal neighbors, “Where do you live?” I think they would be very confused. They might think, “Where do I live?? Obviously, everywhere I go, I am alive. So I live everywhere! What is this strange white lady getting at?” If I want to find out where they call home, I would need to ask, “Where do you sleep?”

We have made the journey back to the USA for a 6-month furlough. During this time, we, like our Pal friends, have a hard time answering the question, “Where do you live?” We get asked when we go to the doctor or sign the kids up for activities. The kids get asked when they join a team or a youth group or apply for a job. In order to answer the question, we have to decide which answer will best fit the context. Usually the answer is something like this: “You mean currently? Right now we’re living in Royalton, but we usually live overseas (or we might insert Papua New Guinea depending on how geographically astute and/or interested we judge the asker to be).” In a few weeks, we will need to give the name of a different town in our explanation, and a few months after that it will be another town. If we are asked, “Where’s home?” that becomes a much more complicated answer, and one that is different for each member of our family! So, “Where do you sleep?” seems like a much easier question to answer right now, just as it would be in Pal.

Cole graduated high school a month ago, we came back to the US and were reunited with Micah, and now we are settled for the time being in the same town as my (Maggie’s) parents. The boys and Maisie are all working summer jobs, and Cole will be getting his driver’s license soon. Making the switch to America means changing some things about the way we think and act, and the longer I live in PNG the longer it seems to take to make those changes! But we are feeling pretty good after a month and looking forward to the rest of our furlough.

One big thing I would like you to pray about is that we are considering buying a house before we go back to PNG in January. As I mentioned, we are living in three different towns during this furlough because it is difficult to find a place to rent for less than a year. Our desire is to find a house that we can live in whenever we are in the US and that we can rent out when we are in PNG. We would love to have a place to call “home” when we are here and that our kids might be able to use as “home” when they are on school breaks. We have looked at a few houses, but we are still in the stages of deciding if we can afford to buy a house and whether or not that is what God is directing us toward right now. Please be praying with us that things would be clear.

In just about 6 weeks we will be sending both the boys to Liberty University. Micah had a wonderful freshman year there, and Cole is excited to be joining him this fall. They got dorm rooms in the same hall, and we are happy they will get to be together again. When they leave, the girls will start school online, and Chris and I will get back to work on ministry-related things. He will continue to work on translation, and I will be getting ready to teach the spring semester at our mission school, as well as maybe working on more Pal literacy books so that people have more things to practice reading. We will also be traveling to see supporters, so if you are wondering about when we will be where, let us know and we can try to plan to see you.