Symmetry

I spent this morning with a hot cup of tea and the New York Times on my iPad, snuggled in a comfy chair in our family room, surrounded by a crazy mess of toys.  Most of these ragtag toys spent the better part of this last year in a shipping container stored somewhere in Miami.  Dave and I quietly noted the one-year anniversary of our expulsion from Venezuela this week, amid the business of our life in Indonesia.

I enjoy the symmetry of this.  We learned we were leaving Venezuela on a Monday, and we were on a flight out of the country by that Wednesday morning.  Prior to that Monday, we had a normal weekend, where we likely spent our Saturday morning reading the news with a hot cup of tea in a room filled with toys.

Over the past two weeks, we have moved into our permanent housing in Jakarta, and we have received all of our shipments.  Just this past week, I unpacked the last box, leaving the house in a fun state of disarray.  When our boxes came from Virginia, we all felt happy because now we had the tools to bake better cookies and the books we had been reading for the past year.  But when our boxes arrived from Venezuela, it felt like Christmas.  We found things we had forgotten we ever owned, and things we didn't realize were not sold.  Lilly and Sophia dug through boxes of old toys, frequently shouting I remember this!  I loved this toy!  By and large, the toys that didn't sell in Venezuela were those missing bits or those showing wear - they were the toys most played with by our family, and the ones most well received when they arrived.  Having a messy playroom again makes the house feel so much more like home, and the girls are again able to play undisturbed for hours.

The past year has been one of amazing, and sometimes rather exciting turmoil.  We have felt people's love and prayers for us, experienced the amazing generosity of near strangers and been comforted by God's clear plan for our life.  We loved our time in Venezuela, and we were sad to leave.  The country has suffered over the past year, and it hurts our hearts.  We felt incredible welcome back to Virginia, which feels more like home now than it did when we lived there in an overstuffed little house two years ago.  We steeped ourselves in our church and our school and our friends.

Jakarta is the new.  We have been here for two months.  But today, I feel at home.  At least as at home as I felt that weekend in Venezuela.  We have our house and our things, and the messy comfort that comes from being at home.  The girls feel comfortable in their school;  they each have good friends.  Dave has figured out a good commuting routine to the embassy, which makes all of us happy.  I have good friends, and enough time to begin exploring the roads, shops and bakeries around our house.

We have had an awesome year.  And now I'm looking forward to two years of quiet Saturday mornings, with a cup of hot tea and surrounded by messy piles of old toys.