Dreaming of Home

As the Williams Family gears up for a special Thanksgiving and Christmas season, we are definitely dreaming of HOME.

As "global nomads," defining home is not as simple as it seems. As we set to celebrate the holidays without our Stateside friends and family, we are painfully aware that we are not back home.

But as we anticipate being with the ones we love here in THIS country, we realize that God has graciously made a home for us in a foreign land.

And looking beyond that ... our family rests in the fact that neither of these places are truly home. Not when we have God's promise in John 14 that He is preparing a place for us. We rest in that as we set to celebrate the holidays here.


Now to explain the photo above ... the five of us are definitely excited about moving into our new house. Right after the builders finished putting up the walls for the individual bedrooms, I took the girls up there to show them their room. I was joking when I said, "Okay, it's bedtime, go to sleep in your room!" But they all quickly scurried to their room, laid their heads on a ladder and pretended to sleep. They are soooo excited.

And something exciting happened at the U.S. Embassy auction last week. There was one lot of furniture (formerly used by the Peace Corps) that included five pieces of antique furniture. I had a feeling we would win it because nationals here don't like the look of old furniture. Sure enough, David bid on it and WON! The BEST part is that it all went for JUST $80. Hard to believe! Four of them are pictured below ... we already sold one piece of furniture to another American family in town.



As we eagerly await the completion of the new house, we are thanking God EVERY day for the provision of the "temporary house" we're currently living in. We're so relieved to be moved out of the "center" of the city and to be closer to the girls' schools and to our office.

The girls and I paused on our way to church this morning to take this photo in the front yard of the temporary house. It has lots of fruit trees ... so far, giving us apples, pomegranates and persimmons.

This is the "foyer" of the temporary house. Small but just the right place for us as we wait for our "real" house to finish in a few months!!!