Long Gone

My sister and her family were home from the mission field for a few weeks and it was AWESOME. Our whole family felt so blessed to have them near us for the first time in about 19 months. So you can imagine how thrilled we were when their original departure date got moved back a few days. We said our goodbyes Tuesday night and drove away from my parents house with the image of my sister waving from the window. I was really proud of myself for holding it together in front of everyone. But, when we got home, my husband looked at me and said "Do you want to talk about it?" I immediately said "NO" but the tears were already rimming my eyes. We talked about what an inspiration their family is to us and how proud we are of them. I admitted I was terrible about emails and had been spoiled by being able to talk to or even go see them whenever I wanted. Josh was so reassuring. Last night as I was driving home from work, I looked at the clock and noticed that it was about the time they were to be boarding the plane. I called my mom, who had dropped them off and asked how it went. She said as they were on the way home my sister called and tearfully told her they'd been placed on standby. I wrote a while ago about being stuck in London for 6 hrs. But this was nothing compared to what my sister was facing. Imagine all the luggage, boxes, and 5 kids ready to travel halfway around the world only to be halted on the verge of their flight. My mother waited for the call last night asking her to come pick them up, but it never came. It seems as though God granted them their passage as we've not heard anything else from them. Please pray for their continued safe travel to their final destination in Cameroon. Checkout their website for updates and for my brother-in-law's moving tribute to my sister.