{"id":453,"date":"2015-10-12T20:26:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T19:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/?p=453"},"modified":"2015-10-12T20:26:33","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T19:26:33","slug":"the-hardest-part-is-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/the-hardest-part-is-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hardest Part is Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, October 9, 2015<\/p>\n

It\u2019s official, we have been back in the USA far too long.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, when we left Congo in March, I DREADED returning to Africa.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t anything bad that happened, we liked Kinshasa, we liked our work, we had good friends and a great church.\u00a0 But, we were exhausted.\u00a0 Our lives changed completely.\u00a0 We had moved cities, we had a baby (and neither one of us knew what to expect during the whole process).\u00a0 And because we were so far from grandparents (and the opportunity to pass the baby off to them for a few hours), we just never really caught up on sleep.<\/p>\n

Living in Africa is hard, it\u2019s difficult to explain, but you just don\u2019t sleep well.\u00a0 There are loud churches playing until well into the night, you have loud talkers walk by your house any time throughout the night, you hear barking dogs off in the distance and just as you finally drift off to sleep, the neighbors\u2019 rooster is crowing at the first sign of morning light.\u00a0 Your night is cut short as you lay in bed wondering if the neighbor would notice if their rooster went missing!<\/p>\n

I have loved the time we\u2019ve had with grandparents, and I have desperately needed every single day we\u2019ve been here.\u00a0 I\u2019ve needed ME time.\u00a0 Blake and I have needed US time.\u00a0 Maddy and I have been able to do so many things we wouldn\u2019t have had other opportunities to do during this huge developmental time for her.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve also learned so many things about being a mom.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned about \u201croutine\u201d or lack there of, and flexibility and sleep transitions and furlough traveling with a baby, I\u2019ve been challenged and\u2026the list goes on.<\/p>\n

Most importantly though I\u2019ve been refreshed.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been encouraged by other moms, in different phases of motherhood, I think I\u2019ve been encouraging to other moms as well.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen friends I miss desperately.\u00a0 And Maddy has met her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins; and they have been with her as she has transitioned through so many phases.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s time.\u00a0 It\u2019s time for our place and our own space again.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard fitting a family of 3 into the house and lives of other people for this length of time.\u00a0 I\u2019m ready to spread out, get my \u201cthings\u201d unpacked, have my clothes all in one spot, and not forget something as we move from house to house.\u00a0 This week it was Maddy\u2019s socks, last time it was my make-up the time before that something else.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to feel settled again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really glad we will be here for Christmas and we will have that final length of time with our family here.\u00a0 But we will also be really ready to return to Africa.\u00a0 To our passions, the life we love, the work we hate leaving behind.\u00a0 There are days that I wish I could combine my 2 worlds into one.\u00a0 The family and friends from the US to the life we live in Africa.\u00a0 We\u2019ve learned how to make the most of the time we do have with each of them.\u00a0 Thank goodness for internet, and skype and factime\u2026it makes everyone feel just a little bit closer. \u00a0However, the hardest part still remains, making the goodbyes sustain us until the next hello!<\/p>\n

\"Goodbyes\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, October 9, 2015 It\u2019s official, we have been back in the USA far too long.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, when we left Congo in March, I DREADED returning to Africa.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t anything bad that happened, we liked Kinshasa, we liked our work, we had good friends and a great church.\u00a0 But, we were exhausted.\u00a0 Our lives changed completely.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furlough","category-missionary"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":456,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.berry1.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}