Three Years Later

Almost 3 years ago our family was packing to return to the U.S. after almost a decade of ministry in Bolivia, South America. As we had imagined, the transition has been incredibly painful and difficult. The reverse culture-shock, the different landscape of the U.S. economy, the anti-Christian agenda of the left-wing media, and many other realities hit us squarely in the face without much of an idea of how to handle them. Today, we are settled into many of these American realities- among them, the high cost of food, fuel, education- but it still doesn't make it any easier to confront them.  There is a traditional stream of the American middle-class that can't imagine why our family has "wasted" 10 years of our lives in a 3rd world country, while we should have been building our careers and assuring a solid foothold in our children's future.  On the outside this opinion has merit, but we have developed a unique skill set that would only be learned in a strange, cross-culture environment and may in one way or another help develop our advancement in the American work world. Fortunately, success is not measured by how comfortable a life one is able to afford and we feel very blessed to be among those who have employment, a roof over our head and for all practical purposes are surviving just fine.  Surviving in America, however, is not the same as surviving in a third world country.  Here it means time, lots of time- time away from family-time away from ministry- time away from everything that is important to us.  If this is indeed where we are supposed to be, then we will adapt ourselves to find balance in every area of our life- but the process is extremely challenging.  Thank you to all who have supported us through the years in Bolivia, and we now understand the sacrifices that many of you made to help us continue serving there.