Home Sweet Home?

I spent much of the last two days (Wednesday and Thursday) in Teguc, working with my home church in a medical brigade (on Thursday).  It was a very busy time.  I enjoyed catching up with people, conversations that we had both on the bus ride back to Teguc as well as Wednesday evening at the mission house.  It was really good to see people from back home, but at the same time it was very strange to see people from back home.  I spent the day Thursday at the brigade with them.  There was some definite spiritual warfare going on.  I spent the morning splitting my time between evangelism and optical...and the afternoon, I just prayed pretty much the entire time...at times for specific people that I saw, and at times just for the brigade in general.  It was good...but not necessarily restful (granted, brigades rarely are).  I went back to the mission house afterward, ate dinner with everyone, and then about 45 minutes later said goodbye and Miguel drove me to the bridge house so I could get a ride back here with Kim today. 

I understand that short paragraph is totally inadequate to describe all the emotions and activities that happened in that span of 30+ hours.  It was great to see familiar people, talk with them, ask how things were going and share with them what God's been doing in my life the last week...but it was strange, a little surreal maybe, to realize that I'm leaving them, staying here...and they're going back "home".  Then again, I could write many paragraphs and still not be able to completely convey everything that's going on.  When I was at the bridge house last night, I was completely exhausted, and just thought "I want to go home"...but in that context I meant back here, at the Ranch.  It surprised me a little to realize how comfortable I've gotten living here at the Ranch in a relatively short period of time.  It's good, but odd at the same time. 

I got back here this morning in time for meetings to start, and didn't realize until 10 when the power cut that we've been going on generators for the last day at this point.  There was a storm that came through last night, cut the power, and the best they can estimate is a few days to maybe a week or more before permanent power is restored.  The generators are a huge blessing!  At the Ranch the generators are run on a schedule so that times when the electricity is most needed (mostly meal times and after dark) electricity is available.  They cut out at 10, but that's okay, because I'm probably going to be ready to sleep long before that.  It's been an tiring couple of days.  The good news is I'm ready (or so I think) for the first few days of school...through Wednesday at this point.  By then I should have a good idea of who my students are (all 8 of them) and have a better grasp of class pacing, etc.