This wasn’t an easy move this time. It is one thing to go to Africa for one year, and rent out your house to one of your best friends, and come back to the same neighborhood and same church and same friends.

It’s another thing to leave a house you love, a church you cherished, friends and neighbors who have been so part of your life, a great job, good income and stuff.

Some stuff you are anxious to get rid of. If you ever make a major move, you know what I am talking about. But the yellow sweater of my father’s was the hardest. It was ugly, and I would never wear it, and the boys would never wear it, and I don’t even remember my father wearing it.

But it was his, and I needed to get rid of it. It was wrenching to do so. When you make a move like this, long-term storage isn’t an option on a missionary’s salary. What to take, what to sell, what to donate, what to store. It was a hard, stressful time.

The hardest thing was the dog. Her name is Eager, and we got her at the pound about five years ago. Half pug, half taco bell- all ugly. She has an under bite and one ear that stays up and one that stays down. Not the brightest bulb in the fridge, that one. All seven and a half pounds of her.

Somehow she became part of our lives. And when it was time to leave, we had a big garage sale and advertised that we had a dog for a good home. People started asking to see her, and we would bring her out of the house.

Up to this point, the boys had been nothing but excited about going to Africa. But they both came up to me in a panic and said “Dad, we can’t let Eager go to someone we don’t know!” They hid the signs and went into the house and just held her.

A kind person from the kid’s school took Eager, and the relief the boys felt was enormous. We will be able to get regular email updates as to the adventures of our former dog.

But if you are like me, and have found yourself inexplicably in love with a dog, I understand you better today than I did a month ago. I can’t explain the hold a dog can have on your heart; I just know one that does.

Getting to Africa wasn’t as easy this time; our house still hasn’t sold, and our mortgage just about equals our monthly take home. We ended up packing till the very last minute. We flew to New York, and after two days @ Africa Inland Mission, we began the journey; six hours from New Jersey to London, a fifteen-hour layover in London, then an eight flight from London to Nairobi, and another 90 minutes in a bus to get to Kijabe.

You are so jet lagged when you arrive that little things could puzzle you. You start to unpack an action packer, and because every inch is precious and expensive, you fill them to the brim. I can’t tell you how confused I was to pull a bra out of one of my shoes; it might have taken me 15 minutes to figure it out.

When you make a change like we did, there are lots of opportunities for self-doubt; safety, health and financial worries can seem to overpower you at times. I was walking through Rift Valley Academy struggling with my doubts when two different men came up to me to thank me for giving their children toys when they were sick and how much it had meant to them. It was fun to use the line I had used so many times: “They came from people in America who love your children.”

And then I saw Fred. When we were in Kenya before, Fred worked for me at our dorm cutting our yard with a machete. There was a drought and no need for him to do anything, but it was a chance to help him out. After a month, I asked him to start coming with me to the computer lab. The first time I asked him to turn on a computer, he was afraid to do it, because he had never been around one before.

By the end to the year, he was typing 60 words a minute and able to do macros in spreadsheets, and I began to ask him to open the lab at lunch so the kids could come in after they ate. Soon, he began to be able to help them with questions.

When we left, he had proven so important to the lab that he was hired full time by the school. He has taken a quantum leap in his abilities and opportunities; he was responsible for doing all the cabling for the lab, and he figured it out himself. His income has increased to the point that he is planning to get married in April.

I’ve wondered sometimes why I came back, and it hit me: I believe it is the yearning of our hearts to help others, but we don’t often get a chance to really impact another life. Looking at Fred, it struck me how powerful redemption is, and the wonder of the Redeemer.

You don’t get too many moments like this in life.

It reminded me why I came back. The drought is over, and so the next major battle is the orphans that AIDS have brought to this country. There is so much to do, but Fred is a great reminder: the battle is won by inches, not miles.

It’s good to be back. Thanks for helping us get here. Wait till you hear what they have me doing.

Your pal,
Steve