Becoming

BECOME...
It has been almost 3 years since I've written here.
We went from sharing so much of our lives pre-Haiti and during our 3 years living in Haiti to keeping things pretty quietly to ourselves.  One would have thought transition to living in a third world country to be very difficult and it was, but nothing in comparison to the transition back to first world living.  We have found that processing this part of our lives better to keep to sharing with very few.  This transition isn't something that is easy to explain, but we have discovered that others who have come back from international work experience the same things, so there is a norm within a world of confusion and question.
At the end of our time living in Haiti, I can remember saying to Max that our years in Haiti were mostly for learning.  We learned so much about ourselves, faith, culture, people, trust, and more.  So much of what we shared here on this blog while we were in Haiti full time was what we were experiencing and learning, but we found it difficult to put into words what we were experiencing and learning on our return.
While in Haiti, we really encouraged those coming to serve with us that they would AWAKEN or BECOME who God desired them to be and to experience the dream God had for each of them.  What we didn't realize at the time was that we were also BECOMING.
In looking back, I discovered that before we left for Haiti, Jeff asked our pastor to pray for us as a family to BECOME...BECOME the people that God created us to be, BECOME the people that fulfill the dream that He has for each of our lives.  Jeff wrote a blog post about it here:  Become
When we moved back from Haiti, we were left with all we had learned, lived, and experienced and translating that into relearning how to live in the U.S. ~ "how do we live differently based on all we brought back with us?"  was a question we continued to ask ourselves over and over.
In some ways, we do live differently now than we did before living in Haiti.  We see things through a new set of lenses.  We live with different priorities.  We make decisions differently.  But we have not arrived.
One thing is certain, we were BECOMING while in Haiti, but we continued to learn and BECOME after our return.  Even now we are still BECOMING.  We are closer, but we are still BECOMING the people that God created us to be. Closer but still BECOMING people that desire to fulfill the dream that he has for each of our lives.
While we are still very involved with Haiti and AWAKENHAITI, God is preparing us to add new adventures to take us one step closer to the dream he has for us.  One step closer to BECOMING.

As Jeff ended his blog post, this prayer remains today:
"My prayer for myself, my family, and you is that we all fulfill the dream God has for our lives, that we play our part in His story and do our best to keep adding people to it."