The Seasons

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. —Ecclesiastes 3:1

Life comes in seasons. One of those has recently drawn to a close for us, and I want to reflect back on it as we approach the season to come (and think a little about the next one on the horizon).

Of course, for all of us 2020 has been the challenging season of COVID-19. Sadly that season continues in many ways, even though in Mozambique it feels like things are not as dire as they once were. For us, living in northern Mozambique, much of 2020 has also been a season of unrest, and it also does not seem to be ending anytime soon.

That unrest is what drove our teammates from their sleepy coastal town to the city of Pemba back in March. And after months in limbo, wondering whether they would ever be able to return home, it became clear that moving back to their town, where they had spent almost seven years, would not be possible. So through much prayer and seeking the Lord, they decided to make Pemba their home.

This family of six have become our dear friends. We see them almost every day. They are our colleagues and our teammates, but they have become much more than that. Their kids are our kids’ “besties,” as they like to say. We’ve leaned on each other in difficult times. We’ve celebrated birthdays, holidays, and victories together. We’ve worked side by side, and at times it’s been stressful and messy. But we love them and we’ve grown used to having them as neighbors, sharing life with them.

Our third annual Thanksgiving meal with our teammates

Judah and P

Asher and his "boys"

Turkey, potatoes, green beans, and four kinds of pie!

Goodbye hugs

Last weekend we tearfully said goodbye to them and to that initial season of living alongside them in Pemba. They are now in the U.S. for their second stateside assignment (what many missionaries refer to as furlough). They will be gone for at least six months, and we will leave Pemba for our first stateside assignment before they return. So we will be apart from them for many months.

En route to the U.S.!

Thus begins our first season of living without teammates in Pemba. When we arrived, another couple was already living there, but they retired and went back to the States in August. At that point our other teammates had already moved to Pemba. Harvey and I have lived before as missionaries without teammates nearby, back in 2004 to 2006 in the small town of Angoche, Mozambique, and God has equipped us well to live that way. We can do it again. It will just be different now that we are so used to having teammates close by.

It won't be long before we enter yet another season of life. As I mentioned, our first stateside assignment begins in April, so we have about five months of this final season of our first term in Pemba. We want to finish it well, especially after a year when ministry was extremely limited and we were not able to accomplish as much as we had hoped and planned. 

As we approach the coming season of going back to the States, in some ways it's hard to believe that we've been on the field for almost three years. It's definitely strange to think that we haven't set foot in America or seen most of our family for almost three years. It can feel sad, but at the same time we can look at our life in Mozambique and see all the ways the Lord has worked and blessed our family, and we can be grateful that he brought us and sustained us so generously, in spite of many challenges.

As I write this I'm on a plane to America—by myself—because of one of those challenges, my father's disease, which I wrote about here. I've felt led to go since March when my dad first went into the hospital, but it would have been nearly impossible back then because of all the travel restrictions. It's still not easy to make this trip now (certainly not easy to leave my husband and children), but God has opened the door for me to go, and I feel a burden and obligation to spend time with my parents as they walk through this trial, not knowing what the future will hold for them. 

I've observed as I've even just briefly lived it that missionary life is a life of transition, a life of changing seasons. Already we had a season of language learning in Nacala, a season of getting settled into Pemba, a season of dealing with unrest and welcoming teammates to our city (as well as saying goodbye to other teammates), and now this season of the final months of our first term. There are a lot of goodbyes, a lot of changes. But God is the constant. He walks with us through the seasons. And it's a good thing, because there is no way we could do it without Him.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. —Isaiah 26:3–4