Monday, 24 May 2010 16:29
We started packing for our move in earnest today. Thanks to the newest airline regulations, we are each allowed to check one 50-lb bag before we have to start paying extra. But we’re going to be extravagant—because hey, how many times in your life do you really move anyway? (Fourteen, so far)—and we’re going to take two bags each. That means we are selling, tossing or giving away everything else.
Didn’t we just do this? I mean, I clearly remember a huge, blowout moving sale on Bridgton Road, Westbrook, Maine on the hottest day in July, 4 summers ago, don’t I? Now, it seems God’s saying it’s time to let go of all our stuff and start from scratch once more. Oddly, it sounds a lot harder than it actually is. I think it’s easier now than 4 years ago because we’ve watched God provide for us so super-abundantly since we moved to Russia.
Take my books for example (well, don’t take them, but I’ll give you a good deal on them…:) When we left America, books were the hardest thing for me to let go of. Keeping them in our storage room in Maine would have been a bad idea: after a few years in a basement, books tend to get earwiggy, and grow a kind of dust that makes my eyes itch. It’s not worth it. So I let them go (except for a handful of the kids’ childhood books, which I just… couldn’t. I’ll always cherish them, earwigs and all.) But since I’ve been in Russia, where English-language novels are a rarity, God has given me a way, way better library than I ever had in America. (Tim’s sister and my aunt send them to me, or I buy them used from Americans here.) Now, I can hear God telling me not to worry about my favorite lamps and my extremely cool, red couch, and the mixing bowls I love so much… that when I need them again, He’ll provide them for me.
Here’s one of the hardest things I have to leave behind. Don’t laugh: 
It was one of our first purchases here: before furniture even. One day, Tim was out buying SIM cards, and he came home bearing this 50-lb monstrosity. I loved it at once! In case you can’t see it clearly, it’s a cast-iron set of fireplace tools: the pokers and brooms and shovels are the knight’s weapons. It lends our living room a very medieval air. I’m sure we’ll find a good home for it here, but I will miss it.
Of course, stuff is all replaceable. The really hard things to leave behind are the people (and, okay, the awesome red couch.) Nina and Galya and I get together and cry for a few minutes every day: it’s very medicinal. And our friends from the village English classes and our university English club students will be a great loss to us too. I hate saying good-bye. In fact, I tend to avoid it and just slip out of town in the middle of the night if I can. If that’s not possible, I smile big and make false, bright promises about how we’ll definitely see each other again soon, and I sort of convince myself of it for a little while too so I don’t have to go through uncomfortable emotions like pain and grief. I’m not advocating this necessarily, but it can help you survive on the days when survival is the best you can do.
The happy side—purely selfishly, you understand—that it’s always easier to be the person leaving than the person left behind. And we’re coming back to people we love, and besides, it’s lobster season in Maine!
Keep praying for us as we get through this all. It’ll be an emotionally wringing month, and we’ll probably pretty much be zombies for our first few weeks back in America, but give us time. God’s not only a great provider of things, but of people too. We know He has great things in store for us!
