A Year of Unemployment

A little over a week ago was our field forum - a retreat of sorts where all of our organization's missionaries serving in Gabon get together to pray, relax, talk about their ministries, and most importantly (at least as far as my stomach is concerned), eat great food!! We had a really nice, relaxing time. We cranked up the A/C in our room (and were freezing every morning), took afternoon naps, played volleyball, and enjoyed getting to know our fellow missionaries better. And all this during the potentially stressful time of elections here in Gabon. Thankfully, they were relatively peaceful - now we are awaiting the inauguration, which will take place in the next few weeks. We're hoping that occurs peacefully as well.

At the retreat, we each got a chance to reflect on where we have been this past year, and what we see for the future year. As I reflected on this past year, a lot has happened. It's hard to believe that a year ago today was my (Eric's) last day of work. That means that I've been unemployed (thankfully voluntarily) for one whole year. There's a lot that we miss about being in the US amongst our family and friends.

But it has been quite the eventful year. In the past year, I quit my job, we sold our condo and stuff, moved to Switzerland, stayed there 5 months, learning French (and learning about stinky cheese and the world's best chocolate), lived in a boat off the coast of Benin for a few months, were separated for a month (which will hopefully NEVER happen again), and then have lived in the rainforest of Africa for the past 4 months! So I can say that for the most part, unemployment has treated me quite well this year! I guess I can't say that our lives are boring (except, of course, when we were trying to memorize how to conjugate all of those French verbs, which I'm still struggling with, by the way)!

Even though we'll be living in the rainforest of Africa, this next year may actually be a little calmer than the past one. Other than a trip to Kenya for a Samaritan's Purse conference in October, and two trips to the US next year (one in March and the other in November) for Wendy's board exams, we'll be pretty much staying put here in Gabon. Our lives will be consumed by fighting off bugs, trying to stay dry and cool, and figuring out how to do our jobs better (for me - keeping track of the finances of the mission and hospital; for Wendy - figuring out how to run an eye clinic and train a resident). But hopefully they'll be even more consumed by strengthening our relationships with each other, our fellow missionaries, and with God. Through all of this, our ulitmate goal is to get to know God better and to help introduce Him to others. What has more lasting value than that?? Seems like a good enough reason for me to be unemployed for another year - sign me up!!!