What is it like to be on Furlough?

Today, April 6, 2010 is our last day of furlough. Furlough is a home service assignment. We live in Ano Glyfada, Greece, but since December 13, 2009, we have lived in Yorba Linda, California. We just finished our first term as missionaries in July 2009, but we delayed coming back to the US until December, so that we could be here for Christmas and our church's mission's conference.

We spent the first 3 weeks at my sister's house. It was a good place to be over the Christmas holiday...with family. We came very tired. Kenn was sick. Several rounds of antibiotics later, he was finally feeling better. We slept and adjusted to the 10 hour time change. We shopped and got ready for Christmas. I worked a few days for my former employer on a project and committed to working a total of 50 days while we are in the US. We were able to attend the Christmas party with our Sunday School class, which doesn't sound like a lot, but we have had Christmas with them every year for 30 years before we came to Greece. Our daughter, Jenni loaned us her husband, Kris' car so that we would have something to drive. He was at boot camp. We celebrated Christmas with family and New Year's with my sister's friends. The first two weeks felt mostly like vacation...even our teammates in Greece were on vacation.

Well, 3 weeks feels like a vacation, but at the end of 3 weeks, we didn't go back to Greece. That is when it started to feel weird. I was now working full time at my former employer, which felt the same, but wasn't the same. We moved out of my sister's house and into the Mission's house owned by our church. It was good to have our own space, it was like home, only it wasn't. Home is now a confusing subject. Where is home?

In January we drove to Visalia, we video taped a piece about our ministry that was used in Church while we were gone. In February we flew to Chicago, drove to Michigan (Holland, Hudsonville, Ada, Commerce Township) and drove back to Chicago. Then we flew to Austin Texas, drove to San Antonio and then back to Austin and flew to Dallas. Then we flew back to California. Two weeks later we spent a weekend in Seattle, Washington and parts as far north as Lopez Island and as far south as Vancouver. We saw family, friends, supporters, and our employer, International Teams in a whirlwind of standby travel. In March, we were "speakers". I spoke at staff meeting at ECCU. Kenn preached on Sunday at Rose Drive Friends Church all 4 services. I spoke at the RDFC Mission's banquet. We spoke in a different small group every week were home, some weeks more than one. We visited with 6 churches besides our own, recruiting short term teams and building relationships. We made new friends, saw old ones and tried to connect with as many people as we could who pray for us.

We got to see our granddaughter, Zoe take some of her first steps. We got to see our son-in-law graduate from boot camp. We got to bury our dear friend, Mindy, whose home is now in heaven.

Sad to say, this didn't all fit in 3 months, so our furlough drifted to almost 4 months. We updated all of our medical stuff, we saw the dentist, the eye doctor, had physicals. Kenn turned in a draft of his master's thesis and finished his preaching class. I finished my 200 page project at ECCU. Then we started the packing. It doesn't seem like a lot when people give you things to bring back with you, or you buy something to wear or you receive a gift...but when you attempt to fit it all in a 50 lb suitcase or your carryon...its a lot of stuff. Now we have 2 suitcases each, a bag for the Good Will, a bag of "work clothes" that I will leave here for the next time I have to work in California; and some books that will come later in the mail. It's all packed up now. In about 20 minutes we will leave for our daughter Betsy's house and "last supper" with family. Tomorrow we will clean the Mission's house so we can get our deposit back and then we fly and return "home". Home is definitely, for now, Greece.