wrapping things up

Hello everybody!
According to our family and friends, we owe everybody an updated blog post. So, here goes...

A couple of weeks ago, we packed up our room at the guest house at Karanda Mission Hospital. In doing so, we said goodbye to some dear friends. After five months of working, sweating, praying, and living with folks on the mission compound, we came to develop some really neat relationships. Additionally, we are continuously grateful for the Epperly family, who loved and supported us well during our time in Zim. They are truly faithful friends (thanks for putting up with me). We especially appreciate the doctors, nurses, and missionaries we worked along side of. We think of them often, especially as the hospital is short staffed in our absence - an exacerbation of a chronic problem (to use geeky medical jargon). It would go without saying that April and I find our lives profoundly affected by the people that we were privileged to meet and serve during our time in Zim. We have returned to our families safe and sound, and for this we thank the Lord. Abbi has adjusted to life in the US beautifully. The love of her grandparents and family has made this a smooth transition for her. We're very proud of her and thankful to be able to serve
As I write, I'm sitting in my friend's ice box of a basement. It's over 90 F outside, but I have a blanket on my toes. Really, it feels very nice. My African friends would disagree.
Tomorrow our International Fellowship graduation festivities begin. We will enjoy good friends and good food and share stories of our travels and of our upcoming move. We're thankful for friends to stay with during this time of transition. Still, we find ourselves a bit restless and in limbo. I knew that life would be hectic coming back to the US. However, I don't think I was prepared to feel so out of place. I didn't know that I'd be straddling so many realities. In a very short period of time, we've known dear friends that live in mansions and friends that live in huts. This collision of opulent wealth and abject poverty makes my head dizzy. As I furnish the home I am renting this year, each expenditure of cash elicits mental imagery of hungry children. Certainly, we should make a nice home for ourselves, I'm not saying that we shouldn't. One can have nice things and live well within one's means. It's just so clear to me that we've confused our wants and our needs, that I've confused my wants and my needs. I'm finding it hard to relate to our "bigger is better" culture. And, though I feel a little misplaced in the here and now, I have come back to our country with a new perspective. If ever I appreciated the freedoms, opportunities, and equalities our country has afforded her citizens, it is now. No country in the world affords such justice and opportunity to those born into poverty. America is not perfect, but I love her.
After this weekend, we'll wrap up "school." I've been at this since I was like 5, so I guess this concludes the last 26 years of my life that I've spent as a "student." But, we never stop learning and I'm sure that the majority of the most important lessons in my life are yet to come. We'll be packing up the Budget rental truck on Saturday and by Monday afternoon, we'll be settling into our new home in rural Iowa. It will be a fairly unique practice that will allow us to practice full spectrum family medicine in the US and still remain very involved in missionary medicine. Getting this new practice off the ground is both exciting and daunting and is another story altogether!