Rest

The computer and I are not getting along very well this afternoon but I'm so determined to write this post. I'm going to ignore that the text is red and underlined! We just got home to Adjumani on Thursday after being away for 10 days. We wanted to have a special family vacation away with our three older boys before they headed back to school for this next term. We stayed at a beautiful camp right on Lake Victoria and had a most wonderful time.

We spent most of our days swimming, canoeing and hiking through the lush rainforest.

It was so good to have time to sit and be still, enjoying watching my boys play together and soaking in God's creation. It's amazing how helpful it is to get away. It's like you can suddenly see your life from new eyes and can be so helpful for evaluating how we're doing and what we can be doing better. These last few months have been soooo exhausting and I've been reading a very insightful book called "Finding Rest when the work is never done" and it opened my eyes to see that I've actually not been functioning in a very healthy way and I need to make some changes.

Carson is already greatly missing his big brothers but we're so thankful for all the little friends he has here in our neighborhood.

This was my favorite right here. Waking up early to have coffee and sit with Jesus. Reading His Word, journaling and one thing I did differently this vacation was to spend more time listening to Him than speaking.

While the littles were sleeping we sat around the campfire with our 3 big boys and talked about the new school year ahead;

So yeah, we had a marvelous family time away. We put the boys on a bus back to Kenya, spent a few days in the city doing some errands and came home on Thursday. I wish I could properly explain all that God is doing in my heart as He speaks to me about margin and being still and that He loves me no matter what and that doesn't depend on what I "do for Him." I'm 41 now and been a missionary for 15 years and yet I feel like God is still teaching me some very basic things about who I am. I'm trying to peel back layers to figure out what the root of my crazy overdrive is. Both Eli and I are "ALL IN" kind of people plus we're people pleasers and have a hard time saying "No" so that is a recipe for a cycle of fatigue/burnout that I'm just so tired of facing. I know there's got to be a better way.I hope to share more along this journey. But for now, I'm over here in Uganda sipping coffee while my baby naps and trying not to feel guilty that I stayed home from a funeral for an elderly lady in our church.