Remembering T.

I've been feeling particularly wordy lately...

Perhaps it's because I laid in bed the other night and read my hand written journal from the time that Tejan was here... while I blogged a TON during that time period, I have more personal journaling that I kept to myself... something inspired me to pull it out.

We're coming up on two years since he left... April 20th will be the two year mark. It's been ages since we heard anything from him, even though we recently sent a nice big package of pictures and letters and a gift to him. It saddens me.

I have a lovely picture of him with his house mother Mama Josephine up on our kitchen wall. I see it every single day. The other day I really paused in front of it. Kissed my fingers. Placed them on his picture and said out loud "I love you, T." It made me cry... that spontaneous affection. I miss him.

We are still saving money for a family trip to Sierra Leone. Sometimes I get positively overwhelmed by the magnitude of the expense we will put out to go. I used to say summer of 2010 we would go. Now I'm saying 2011, but realistically, if we can just get it to happen before Kyler leaves for college in the fall of 2013, I think it will be a miracle.

$20,000 is a lot of money to save. Especially when ordinary life seems to be getting more and more expensive as the kids get older.

It's been on my mind a ton lately. I'm trying to come up with as many creative ways to save as I can... but often it feels like an impossible task.

And then, since there's been such a long silence from T., I wonder how relevant a visit from us will be to him once we finally are able to make it happen.

I just know that it is a gift I want to give my children before they reach adulthood. I want them to have the perspective visiting one of the poorest countries in the world would give them before they make their way into life on their own.

And so I save. I set up automatic savings withdrawals every payday. I tuck every five dollar bill into a special drawer. Ethan empties the change from my purse into his 'Africa' bank. I stopped buying clothes this year so I could save more. All my rebate checks go right into my savings.

I also pray. I pray for miracles. For God to multiply my efforts. For divine provision.

And yet it's easy to be discouraged.

I wish he were closer. I wish we could talk on the phone and hear his voice. I saved a voicemail on our answering machine from the last time he called us before he left the states... I've managed to not erase it for all these months... it begins "Hello, Auntie Cathy... this is Tejan..." It is so sweet to be able to push a button and hear his voice. I've probably listened to it hundreds of times. I'm so afraid it will get erased one day accidentally...

He's been on my mind so much lately. I'm sure it must be the upcoming anniversary of his departure.

So that's where my brain has been settling lately... in addition to all the stuff I'm processing about the Chicago trip and the end of the internship... and the challenges of parenting my teenagers and my baby who is in the awkward pre-adolescent stage...

It's all okay... but I sure do pray a lot lately. Because often it's just too much to process on my own.

So that's that. Thanks for listening. It helps to get it all out there.