Back home from furlough!

It’s good to be back in our second home. Our first furlough is behind us and what shall I say? It was a delight to see friends and family again, wonderful to meet many for the first time and to now call you friends. Many times your hospitality was like the hand of God providing for our needs and more often our wants (like raspberries!) I love that God cares about such things like fresh berries that we don’t get here and made sure we got plenty! I regret that we didn’t get to see everyone we wished to. But may I speak freely? It is a relief to be back in India. Honestly, friends, life in the US is a tornado of seemingly empty activity – that is my impression anyway. We had a life just like it, but we’ve come to value relationships much more than we used to and the American lifestyle doesn’t place a lot of value on people. The nature of furlough and its short length of time means we were caught right back up in the rush trying to see everyone, visiting, speaking, etc, etc. But what is everyone else’s reason? I guess I was most appalled by those who spoke of busyness like it was an acceptable excuse for things that should take priority (in my opinion) – “I haven’t seen so-and-so in months; I’m just so busy I don’t have time for anything anymore!” That kind of busyness is not a virtue! The ironic thing was that we were insanely busy trying to see people as opposed to “too busy to see anyone!”

While I’m being frank there were two faith-trying experiences I wanted to share with you. To be honest, there was a part of me (Karen) that looked forward to furlough as a time to “coast,” so to speak; to go away from the difficulties, the stress, the strain of life in the field. To just be on cruise control, almost like I didn’t have to pray as hard or lean on God for so much. Sounds crazy maybe, but it’s true. But although I just wanted to coast it seems that God wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to engage my faith and trust anyway. First thing was our visas. It had always been our intent to change our visa status at some point. We didn’t want to be tourists forever and our consciences were troubled by that status, so while we were working on our cultural scrapbook we were also looking for ways we might meet some need in an area they value (versus what we think might be helpful) and also give us an avenue to stay more securely. Education came out as a big value and we had several requests to teach at different places; plus people were always asking us to tutor their children. After evaluating all the issues involved it seemed teaching English would be the simplest and most helpful route we could take. But we needed to change our visa status. We filled out all the paperwork and everything seemed very simple and straightforward and yet once the paperwork was in the mail I suddenly felt uncertain. I realized we were taking a risk and could be denied, considering we still possessed a perfectly good tourist visa good for another 7 years. I started thinking about what if we couldn’t go back and could hardly stand the thought. I thought, too, about all the people it would disappoint. I felt completely uncertain that we had done the right thing. So for 9 days I wrestled with God about these and other issues, not knowing what the outcome would be. On day nine we got our business visas – approved for 10 full years, the longest length of visa they give! Such relief, I cannot tell you! And utter thankfulness.

Second faith-trying issue…did you notice our fundraising bar in the magazine? Did you notice that it stayed at 0% for nearly our entire furlough? Raising funds is never easy for us. Do you like asking people for money? Most people I know don’t like to ask others for money and neither do they want anyone to ask them for money either! We knew it would be by God’s Spirit alone that what we needed would be provided for. And at the 11^th hour it was. Again I sensed that it was God trying my faith although I was shrinking back from engaging with Him. He showed once again that it is really Him in control of everything in my life and things happen when He moves His hand. Thank you to all who responded to our need. Thanks be to God who puts such things on your heart.

We’ll be moving into the apartment upstairs at the beginning of March. It is much drier than the ground floor where we are currently. There are lots of things to take care of and to get started on in the coming days, besides moving, cleaning, resettling. There’s also Nepali tutoring to pick back up again. It’s incredible how much vocabulary got fuzzy over furlough. Most of the grammar is still intact but names of things I’ve forgotten. It’s coming back pretty quickly though.

We need your prayers specifically for 1) our team to have focus and unity from the outset, 2) where to teach English in the future, 3) where to shift the location for our Sabbath meetings, 4) and for the lesson writing that will begin soon. Everyday we pray together for many, many other issues and people, trusting fully that God will accomplish His will here. Thank you for the many forms that your support takes; truly we are in this together.

Karen & Jonathan