A friend wrote us a note of encouragement and said that it was good to have us back in the saddle (Texas idiom). Fredna’s reply, “We are standing by the horse but are not quite back in the saddle yet!”
When we evacuated Liberia ten months ago, we had less than two days to try to organize matters for an uncertain length of absence and unknown direction. We secured essential ministry tools and assigned a young man to come by weekly and oversee our property in our absence. While we were gone, some other mission furniture and household items had to be stored in our house, so we returned to the task of sorting and organizing before we could even occupy our little space.
Happily, there was not an abundance of mold and mildew as we had feared, but it seems that roaches and mice made themselves very comfortable instead, especially in the kitchen. That meant that every nook and cranny had to be inspected and every item washed, disinfected and put back in place. For days this project continued, all the while struggling with the gut-wrenching emotions of having left family and familiar and returning as the lone AGWM missionaries assigned to Liberia. So we worked and cleaned with interspursed moments of crying and missing home.
If you have never travelled to this part of the globe, you probably cannot fully understand that we have not just changed locations; we have changed worlds. At the end of the first very long day, Gaylord said, “Fredna, you have worked so hard today. You don’t need to cook tonight.” That was appreciated, but the reality was that if Fredna didn’t cook, we didn’t eat! Good-bye fast-food and restaurants on every corner. Hello home cooking, filtering water, and disinfecting fresh fruits and vegetables. Gaylord pitched in and washed the dishes because, you guessed it, there are no dishwashers either!
But now, a week later, we find ourselves back in the office ready to put our figurative feet in the stirrups. The work before us remains, and we pray for divine strength and wisdom for each task.
