self-portrait – The Oaxacaborn Blog

It’s AUGUST. I don’t know how something like that could have happened. Funny, the chatter today about Fall being just around the corner. It sure doesn’t feel that way here. The crickets’ dusk song hasn’t slowed; one chirp blends into the next with scarcely any time at all elapsed in between. The humid air is thick and unforgiving, holding up so much water it’s a wonder the clouds don’t come crashing down around our feet. My toenails are brightly painted orange – neon, not autumnal; more like sherbet than like maple leaves. The inside of the car is scorching, and the seats burn our summer legs as we climb in.

This is not the crunchy and dry California summer. This is not the verdant green, sweatshirt-clad Midwest summer. But this is our summer. Our summer, and we are peaceful. God led us to this oasis, this palm-tree laden land where our table is filled with food, where the pool is clean and refreshing and ours to enjoy, where the row of windows in the living room look out over roads and into the sky, and not into other windows.

Sometimes, it’s hard to see that this is an oasis. Our families are thousands of miles away. I do not have friends here to laugh with, friends to share a summer afternoon with. I get lost trying to find simple places like the post office. The street signs are all unfamiliar. It is hard, sometimes. Hard to be so far away from what used to be home.

But mostly, somehow, I am peaceful.

God saw what was going on with Israel. God understood. (Exodus 2:25 MSG)