How do you pack up your life, say goodbye to your families, friends, and everything else you’re used to, and move to the other side of the planet?

I still have no idea.

You have to pack. And then pack again. Cut out half the stuff you wanted to take. Then try packing again. Realize that you’ve got to be as ruthless a packer that ever was, and then try again. Then you’ve got to unpack, realize you still have too much, and give it one more go. Then repeat all of those steps about five more times.

What do you need? What do you want? What should you take? I still have no idea. I’m sure about a month or two from now, we will see both wisdom and foolishness in what we decided to bring with us. Prudence and materialism. Selflessness and selfishness.

All I know is that it’s pretty hard. Harder than we thought it would be.

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So, after the whirlwind of the holidays, weddings, get-togethers, and everything in between, we are tired. Thank goodness my wife came up with the idea of a furlough in Europe for a week and a bit. After some mind-numbing travel, we got to Nice, France two nights ago.

We thought the lack of sleep that we experienced the week or so leading up to the 15^th would help with the jet-lag. Yeah, it really hasn’t.

We spent the day yesterday sight seeing. Oh the places we went! The things we….dreamt. Yeah not a whole lot has been done thus far. We said this would be a great time for us to rest and recuperate, and I guess we needed it! The last 24 hours or so has been highlighted by tons of sleep.

I guess we’ll see France tomorrow.

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The goodbyes were tough. Not too many words to describe it better. In the last few days, we shared laughter and tears with family and many friends. We are so incredibly blessed by the people in our lives.

Though it still feels weird that we’re not coming home after this, we also realize we are in a transition. That word “home” is about to be redefined in the most significant of ways. On January 27^th, Burundi is going to become home for us.

This is the hardest thing we have ever done in our lives. As we move forward, I am sure that we will encounter even more adversity and hardship. Along with that hardship, we are looking forward to the coming journey, the adventure. We are excited to see what God has in store for us, and we can’t wait to share all of it with you.

Thanks for reading. We will update you from the other side of the world soon. In the meantime, I get to spend some long-awaited time with my lovely wife. So don’t feel too bad for me.

Love you all so much. Thanks for sharing in this journey with us.