After we left Pensacola, we headed back to MS. We were able to pay a little visit to another one of John's cousins and spend some time with her family. She has three kids and as I mentioned previously, I love being able to get my kids together with John's cousins' kids. (And I like his cousin too. ) Then, I got to spend a little time with John's brother and his wife, who were expecting their first child at the time. I had wanted to see my SIL's baby bump, so I was happy to have dinner with them. Ruth arrived and we left the next morning to head home. I'm not like most people who dread their in laws. God has blessed me with some really great in laws and I enjoy spending time with them. We love spending time with Ruth, and the kids were very excited to see her. I was glad to be able to catch up with her. We drove to Little Rock the first night and finally got back home to a very excited daddy on 10/25. Ruth flew back to Colorado the next morning. It was certainly good to see John and be back home, but it was hard to adjust to being back here. They don't have all the things I want here. And the area where we live has almost no diversity (can't say no diversity, because there is Hannah and there is me......) and it's hard for me. I feel like we stick out everywhere we go. No one is unkind to us. We have been very well received and have found mid-Western people to be very nice and easy to get along with. But it's just hard to be the only one of anything in any area of life. At least for me it is. There is more diversity in the Omaha area, but that's 30 minutes away. I also haven't really clicked with anyone in my Classical Conversations (homeschool) group here, which makes me miss my old group even more. So coming back was hard. Leaving my parents was hard too. I have never been this far away from them for so long. I'm used to seeing them all the time. I have never had to go visit them like that before, because they have always been within an hour of us as long as we have been married. So I was sulky for awhile after we came back and it was hard to get back into the swing of homeschool and every day life, but with God's help we did. Thankfully, we do have a few friends here, so that helps.(Skype helps too.)
The week after I got back, I was offered a job teaching Zumba at the local YMCA. I was quite happy to accept. God asked me to lay down teaching in April of '13. At the time, I didn't know we were about to renovate our house and move. But God knew what was in store and he was preparing me. I missed Zumba like crazy and I know my ladies miss me. But thankfully, now that were are here and settling in, God has given it back to me. He's so good to me. I teach once a week for now, but will have two classes a week next month. My employment there gives us a very nice discount on our family membership, so that helps our budget too.
Yeah, I'm almost caught up on my blogging now!
I remember where I lived in Ethiopia I was the ONLY white person in the whole town (and the next town over for that matter). When I would walk around the children would run after me shouting, "ferengie, ferengie" which meant, "white person, white person" (talk about standing out), so I know what you mean when you say you stand out, I hope things get better for you! :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I had another friend make a similar comment about a time when she was on a missions trip. I remember when I was in Armenia. The people I ran into there had never even seen a black person. I had braids at the time and people were always pulling my hair wherever I went. I was getting asked for my autograph everywhere we went, like I was famous or something!
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