REST AHEAD

Mercifully, RVA has planned a mid-term break in every three-month term.  Which forces our life into a pattern of six weeks work and a long weekend of rest, a sabbath-like rhythm.  Tomorrow we will rise before light, drive all day to Entebbe, fly in the evening to Nairobi, and be reunited as a family.  Then we will spend Friday to Tuesday at the Kenyan coast.  The ocean is a very real metaphor of the powerful un-searchable depths of God's being.  We are praying that a few days of sun, quiet, waves, fish, exercise, and togetherness will be restorative all around.  The boys are coming out of a slew of exams, an exhausting soccer season, dull food, and lonely separation from family. We are coming out of one attack after the other, turbulence in team life and planning, old griefs and anticipated griefs, failing electronics, an over-capacity hospital, rumors of swine flu, and the messy early transition work for the new (to-be-discovered) head teacher.  In other words, normal life, which tends to unravel us, and requires extended hours, weekly days, and occasional retreats of rest and removal.  Praying for real rest of the body and soul, and family memories to sustain us for the next stretch!