Are We Home Yet?

"Thank you for flying with Jet Blue. If this is home, we welcome you. If not then safe journey to wherever you're traveling." These parting words from the pilot on a recent flight in America reminded me that even though I arrived at my destination, I wasn't really home yet.
We have spent five years living overseas and the moving, packing, flying, and transitioning have never gotten easier. The saying hello and good-bye only gets harder. Our job makes us feel like permanent travelers. And, traveling with children is always a FUN adventure! Stephen enjoyed singing for all the passengers (above). When we first moved to Hungary, one of our children asked with a trembling voice at bedtime, "Where is home?" I explained that home is wherever we are - together. Home is not the location, the house, the rooms, the stuff....it is the "us." Our home is our family, and that means wherever we are, we can be home. But the truth is that we really are just travelers in this life...on a journey to our real eternal home with God in Heaven. There is a longing to be in that perfect place, a longing that this earthly home doesn't fully satisfy. How can we long for a home that we have never seen? Because it isn't about the location, the home, the rooms, the stuff...it is about the "us" - that perfect relationship we have with God. A longing to be fully at rest and in union with our Father. We enjoyed our time at home in America. Everyone in Florida, Texas, and everywhere in between were so wonderful to us. The time really did go by so fast. But for now, we are back at home in Hungary, and time is not slowing down.
"Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God." - Jim Ellliot