“Home”

Our family has been in the UK for about a month now, settling into our third home in 4 months. Whenever a member of our family talks about home, we always need to ask, “Which home do you mean?”

Interestingly, the answer varies, but is most commonly “Kovol”. Despite the challenges of living there, that’s where we feel the most comfortable. For Steve, that is where his work and purpose are. Gerdine knows the house there inside and out, knowing the place for everything. Oscar thinks of his friends Louis and Timon and the daily spontaneous play. Alice and Millie think of the teddies left behind to “look after their room”.

The difficult thing to process is that we feel comfortable in each place in different ways. There are good experiences, opportunities and memories in each place. As we’ve settled into life in Bracknell we’ve been enjoying seeing people, getting rest and experiencing new things. In many ways, we are blessed multiple times over. We have multiple homes, friends all over and good experiences in several places. The flip side of that is sometimes being unable to shake the blues when we miss something about one of the homes. Excitement at the new combines with grief at missing something from another home.

For myself, the positive feelings outweigh the negative by a good margin. Each family member feels different things at different times. Phew, that’s a lot to process! It feels like we multiply life’s experiences and then need to work through all of that.

It makes me think of what Jesus said:

 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Mark 10:29-30 (ESV)

That sounds quite a lot like the idea I’m getting at, but I wouldn’t say we’ve reached a hundredfold just yet! 🙂 If we keep at this ministry, though, we just might end up living in 100 different houses before it’s time to go to our home in heaven.

Life in Bracknell is settling into a more predictable routine. We’re excited to be able to sign the kids up for activities. Swimming lessons are a weekly fixture now as we try and get in the practice that isn’t possible when we’re living in Kovol. Oscar has started football training each week as well. Our children don’t have the opportunity to go to any group activities in Kovol. Being part of a class with other children is something we’re keen that they have some experience with.

I had been really looking to regularly attending our church in Bracknell and being part of the community. The reality has been more difficult as we’ve been visiting so many different churches, giving reports about the work in Kovol. Again, there is the blessing of meeting so many people, but the challenge of ending up less rooted.

Through it all, we’ve been experiencing God’s care and provision for us. I’m still amazed at how he provided the manse for us that we are now living in, as well as a car for transport.
Life is always busy – it can be easy to be distracted with the daily grind and solving the problems each day brings. When we do find time to reflect, we’re amazed. We started this journey into missions 14 years ago. 9 years ago, we came to PNG for the first time. 5 years ago, we moved into Kovol and started on language learning.
We’re now blessed with 3 children, and as we look to the future, we’re encouraged that we will continue to be cared for and have what we need. As we reflect on where we’ve come from and where we are now, we can certainly say that it wasn’t a mistake to step into tribal ministry. We have been blessed, and we’re looking forward to the future of being able to share the Gospel in the Kovol language for the first time.

The latest news from Kovol

There is some good news from Kovol. Philip and Natalie had a language test recently and both scored Capable High. That means both have achieved the speaking level needed to start work on Bible translation and lesson preparation. Philip just has a discourse paper or two to finish, and that will be the official end of their full-time language study!