so you know that relieved feeling you have after you've been on a long trip, and have finally made it back home and unpacked and started settling back into life?  when you can just take the time to sit on the couch and read and journal or casually browse Facebook without a purpose?  well, i'm finally there.  after eighteen months of living life halfway, i'm ready to completely unpack.  and it's a little scary, finally deciding that you are gonna dive in headfirst, even when you don't completely know what's gonna come.  but one thing i do know, is that He is going to do amazing things.  and he already has been, because these beautiful people have already made their way into my heart. 

life has been full with visitors (from the states!) and village trips and hundred of pictures and editing + weeding through those pictures (that seem to be multiplying) and packing and unpacking and short notice french lessons and scary amounts of time in the car and overplayed playlists.  

so i'm exhausted and full and ready for a long time of sleep.  but it's been great and i've got pictures to prove it.  and hopefully something else that will make an appearance before the first month is out.  and i think that the fact that the moon decided to visit during the day is pretty cool… 

they say that pictures speak louder than words, so here are pictures instead of words.  but i will say, that we sang and ate and played and walked and ran and laughed.  and it was amazing… and beautiful.  

four days, two churches, five services, nine baptisms, four meals and countless hours of visiting.  

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we spent time that we would have been using to sleep, crammed into a small, cinderblock church full of dust and people and small light and dust.  

we watched as friends and brothers and sisters in Christ become new creations as they openly showed their love and devotion for Christ by being born again.

dust again filled one church, and then another as Christ was worshipped again by his people.  not as we would with bowed heads and quiet prayers but with the stomping of feet, clapping of hands and shouting praises to the Lord on high.  

meals were shared and kilos of rice were eaten.  practically the whole village suddenly appeared when the word got that food would be available… 

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christmas, like most things, looks different here.  instead of a time of rest and reprieve, it's a time of pouring out.  but He is using new things to fill me up, and water my roots as i continue to settle into the place where He has me.