Restless or rest-full?

*Content disclaimer: I intend on being real and this might get vulnerable, so feel free to skip the following text and scroll down to the pictures of cute kiddos!

It has been months and months since I have written a blog entry. This is mostly due to the fact that there has been so much going on both within our family and within Adonai that honestly it can be overwhelming to try and keep on top of the day to day stuff, never mind find the time to write about it. (If anyone is up for teasing out our thoughts and reflections on life out here and putting them into bloggable words, give me a shout!) 😂 😉 

Let me take you back a couple of days. We'd been waiting for Noah and Ikeys' new passports to arrive at the Spanish embassy in Guatemala, before planning our first trip "home" to England and Spain in almost 2 years. So finally, after various 14 hour round road trips to do paper work in Guatemala City with 3 little ones under the age of 4, and two months of waiting for the Madrid office to send our passports to the embassy here, we received the joyous news that the passports are sitting in the Embassy. Yippety-yip, hip-hip, hooray!! This meant we could really start looking at flights and getting excited about that month of seeing our beloved family and friends again. 

One quick search on Skyscanner reassured me that we could even make it home as soon as the end of October! We convinced ourselves that this Autumn trip home we'd been hoping for (or maybe mostly I - had been pining after) could finally happen. Yes it would be crazy and fast, but what cross-Atlantic trip to two countries with multiple little boys wasn't going to be crazy??! (Did I mention we have 3 mini men now?? I still haven't got my head around that! Haha). 

This was starting to get exciting. We could book those tickets!  It was finally happening! 

Cue the niggling feeling that triggered the search for our oldest boy's passport, just to double check that it wasn't going to expire. Surely not? Their second passport lasts 5 years, right?? 

Wrong. 
Expiry date November 2016. 

And then I crumbled. How dumb could we be? How unorganised, I mean - how had we not seen this earlier? How embarrassing. 

My husband gently reminded me that we had checked this earlier, but it was ok because we were originally intending to travel in June, so it wasn't an issue. Then June turned into September. And September turned into "maybe October"…. And somehow on all the busyness we just plain forgot. 

I cried ... and promptly felt the need to munch through a whole bar of Cadbury's chocolate. My most homely flavour… my ultimate comfort food that ran out months ago (which, incidently, no one can send me anymore, because our nearest post office - a 2 hour drive away - has also gone bust and closed down. Woe is me, indeed! ;) ) 

Now here's the crux of the matter.  Life has been a non-stop, super whirlwind of visitors, teams, hospital advances, decisions, a stressful birth plan in a new country (which went perfectly in the end!!), trying (and mostly failing) to balance all of this with finding time to spend with our neighbours/work colleagues/friends/general life-buddies here in Canillá. 

It has been a ridiculously exhausting year for all of us on the team. But it's ok, we would just keep plodding on and that month back in Europe would be enough to give us renewed strength, passion, energy, perspective…surely?! 

It's worth noting here that in all of this process, we were praying for God's timing on this trip home. So as I sat with that almost expired passport in my hand, I confessed the following to Luis: 
        I had been hanging everything on this trip in order to rest, disconnect, etc. But God was now making it loud and clear that my rest needs to be found in Him first. 

We love our life out here. It is a crazy contrast with our life in Santander, Spain, (which we miss , a lot!) but we are generally really happy and know that this is where we need to be. Where God wants us right now. Life here on the surface is so much slower paced and healthier than how we used to live, yet deep down it is so very intense on a spiritual, cultural and emotional level… That is what is so hard to explain to people who don't live here. 

So this trip will happen. At a more sensible time, less hurried and not because we need to "escape". And while I'm talking about this from a spiritual perspective, we will still try to be intentional about having a break/mini holiday sometime in the near future.

The point is, we need to keep coming back to God for that renewed strength, passion and energy. It has to be daily. Or even hourly. It's not in the trips out of town or cappuccinos in Antigua or walking around a shiny shopping mall in Guatemala City. Those things definitely help at times!! But their effects last only a few weeks, or days before we exhaust ourselves again.

We get drained by those moments when: 

We hear about another kid who has committed suicide locally. 
Another pregnant 12 year old comes to see us at clinic. 
The little 1 year old you see at clinic with a nasty pneumonia and deadly low Oxygen sat's won't be taken to hospital by his parents.
We get offended by something someone says or doesn't say to us. 
Our baby doesn't let us sleep. 
The cross language and cultural communication gets exhausting. 
(Fill in the blank space from your own situation...................................................)

Life is tiring, whatever season you're in, whatever role you play out! The only source of renewable strength and peace that I have experienced is in Jesus. And trust me, it has taken me some hard life lessons to learn this. Over and over. And I'll probably keep on forgetting and relearning! 

Ultimately, I am relieved we don't need to plan a trip so quickly. We are so looking forward to hugging you all in person and hearing what has been happening in your lives (and eating vast quantities of Cadbury´s, cream teas, sausages, and pinchos de tortilla!!) and that will happen in the new year.

Meanwhile, let's just keep on, periodically giving it all back to Him, our life-giving, peace-restoring, perfect father and reset our focus on the stuff that really matters, eternally.

Now for some photos! :) 

  Tío Francis, Luis & Abuelito Maquey and the cousins on an adventure!

 On yet another walk, that time in beautiful Antigua, to try and encourage the arrival of baby Noah!

 ...and then he arrived! Without the umbilical chord wrapped twice around his neck, as shown on our 35 week scan! Miracles do happen!!

 A very happy daddy!

 Ikey´s 2nd birthday :)

 How they love that little baby brother!

Overlooking Canillá and the valley. 

 Joshy turned 4! 

 Taking a break in one of those shiny, exhausting shopping malls, during a trip to Guatemala City to do paperwork.

 This little bubba is all smiles! (Noah at 4 months old).

Celebrating Guatemala´s Independence Day.

One year!

5th January 2015: The day we set out on the biggest adventure/risk of our lives - so far!

5th January 2016, 3:30am: Wide awake, suddenly it dawns on me that we left Spain a whole year ago, I'm thinking about the many changes - beautiful, difficult and scary - of this past year. Body, couldn't you choose a more sensible hour to do this? No? Okay... bowl of corn flakes, pen and paper at hand, time to blog!


One year ago today: A surprise farewell at Santander Airport.  We had no idea what lay ahead!

The past few years one thing has been at the forefront of my mind. God is constant, never-changing, always faithful. This is an aspect of Him that I love and am often comforted by!

I thought I´d give you a little insight into some of the contrasts and changes in our lives since moving to Canillá:

Home.
Has gone from a 2 bedroom flat in the city, surrounded by A LOT of concrete and bricks. Our closest friends a 5 minute drive away, work a 10 minute drive away. TV, (decent) wifi, unlimited water, all very much normal, not even considered on a daily basis.
...To living on the A.I.M. compound, in a lovely little apartment, surrounded by huge, open, green spaces and plenty of faces! Closest friends/neighbours a 30 second walk away! Work: on our doorstep. TV: Something we watch dvd's on, wifi: what's that again? Water usage: Something we are very conscious of and grateful for!

Friendships.
Before: Had to be scheduled into very busy, clashing timetables. A whatsapp and arrangements to meet for a coffee/play-date/walk on the beach.  Fun, deep, meaningful, limited by time, precious.
Now: One aspect of community living we have discovered is that you suddenly have a whole bunch of new friends. Some come and go too quickly for our liking, others we know are growing to be loyal, stable, parts of our lives. Before we had to make an effort to arrange to see friends. Now we see them all the time, but the effort has to be even greater if we want to go beyond the "How are you? How was your day? How did that meeting go?" stage and into something more vulnerable, deep and beautiful. There's no more hiding from the world if you're having a bad day! ;)

Church.
Sundays, Wednesdays, most days on Facebook and Whatsapp! A physical building, a beautiful sense of community - though somewhat more spread out than now! Spanish. Work schedules determined who could get there that day.
Here: Re-defined. A part of every day life. No physical church building, but a community of some 30 (at a guess?) English speaking missionaries who live in Canillá and San Andrés. We meet at least every Tuesday night in the house next door to us for worship, prayer, sometimes a teaching and always popcorn! And also at various other moments during the week for prayer room sets. A central part of our lives, work schedules do not (currently!) determine how often we can attend.
Spanish worship: Though we are living in a Spanish speaking country, our doorstep community means it is way more often in English. Many of us recognised the need for a fresh, local, spanish worship night and that has been our baby/project this year.  A challenge we have loved!

Family life.
In Spain - always determined by by shift work. Pregnancies overseen by a midwife. Births in local, decent, public hospital. One baby at home, one toddler at pre-school.
In Canillá - what determines our work schedule. Much more quality time together. Surrounded by like-minded thinkers of God first, family second, work/ministry next.  Pregnancies overseen by...us! Births - do we risk a 'home' (or clinic?) birth (lucky for us Daddy is a doctor and there are professionals on hand!) or do we pay out for a private hospital birth in the capital? Public hospitals are not an option due to poor conditions, lack of medicine and overload of patients.

Work.
Shaped every corner of our lives, a salary, a constant income. Often stressful.
Now: still a very central part of our lives, and the reason we came here - our passion to serve those who have least and share God's love... yet it somehow doesn't dominate our life or influence as hugely our time together as a family. Our money now comes through what we believe is God's faithful provision, through generous people - a lesson in humility and trust in itself!

Food.
In España: Varied, delicious, quality meat, seafood, tapas, pinchos and whatever Carrefour, Lidl, or Mercadona had to offer, all just a 5 minute drive away.
Now: Endless choices and colours of fruit and veg, but very limited meat and fish options. Everything has to be made from scratch. Local market every Friday/Saturday (which very quickly lost it's novelty effect on us). Oh, or a 6 hour drive to Walmart! :)

And so to end: We've gone past that first year novelty, honeymoon period and are well into the everyday, much slower-paced routine. Blessed to be in an environment where it is so natural to put God first. Surrounded by prayerful people with beautiful hearts and visions very similar to our own. Changing faces and friendships and work. Same constant, faithful God!