We're back!

After 24 hours in 4 airplanes and around 15 hours in layovers, we are officially back! Stepping back onto our island here in SE Asia was a surreal feeling as we had just left cool 50 degree temperatures in the States and landed smack back in the middle of 90 something degree heat. As I write this now, our kitchen (which we just finished having language class in) registered at a comfortable 93 degrees Farenheit. There were a lot of things I'd kinda forgotten about regarding our island while we were gone in the states - like the army of flies that invaded my kitchen today as we tried to get a breeze in the house; I think I successfully killed 25 in under 10 minutes! I forgot about all the random stray animals. I walked in my kitchen to find a stray cat lazily sitting on my kitchen table making himself comfortable because we'd left the door open trying to get a breeze. Joseph and I fell asleep on our first night back only to be woken up by the crazy swaying of our house as a minor earthquake caused us to jump out of bed, scoop up Anna, throw clothes on and run out the door . . . and this happened not once, but twice: once around midnight and again around 4am. It's as if our island was saying "Welcome back! Didn't you miss me?!"

It has been precious to see friends that we have not seen for 6 weeks, and as we struggle to change our language from English to the local language here, we are ever aware of the drastic change that it is to live here. However, this time, it felt like we were coming home! Dear friends - both white and local - greeted us with huge hugs and beautiful smiles! We are enjoying living out of our own home again and not pulling clothes out of suit cases. We are even enjoying the local food again after a 6 week hiatus from rice.

We are aware that our home is not on this earth, but we feel like we do have two temporary homes on this beautiful planet anyway: one there in NWA and one here on our hot little beautiful island here in SE Asia.