Bittersweet.......

Dear Friends,

I am now sitting in the house with various ‘piles’ of things ready to be packed yet again for the return journey to Wilmington.  It will be a bittersweet departure from Accra on Friday evening.  For so many reasons I am happy to be heading home to Wilmington.  I will be able to spend time with my friends who are so precious to me, I will be able to have my dogs back home once more, I won’t be living in a house with a solid stone wall, electric fencing and a guard on the property at all times – I will have my privacy back, the list could go on. 

But, I am also leaving Accra having just begun to really settle in.  The house was looking like a home, plants were potted and I was making friends and enjoying some pleasure time.  The Accra team has been wonderful and I will be sad to leave them too.  I am also leaving a program that had such promise and a hope that I would be helping to improve others’ lives in a lasting manner but the scope has changed and I am not needed here so am heading home at the end of this week L/J!

What’s next?  I am not sure yet, I will have a week in Wilmington and then be heading to the beautiful island of Islay off the west coast of Scotland for almost a month.  Staying with my older brother and his family I will be able to enjoy a lengthy visit; the first in a very long time.  I will be able to ride across the hills down to the beach, gallop along the beach, walk for as far and as long as I like without having to see men stopping to ‘relieve’ themselves at the side of the road or risk being hit by a ‘trotro’.   I am longing for the peace and beauty of Islay and know that time with family will be brilliant as I determine what is next.  The trip to Islay will culminate with a trip to Perthshire for my second oldest nephew’s wedding in early September before heading home to Wilmington.

It will still take several weeks before my belongings will arrive in Wilmington so I will probably be ‘camping out’ again, but this time in my own home with my dogs and my friends close by……..

I wonder what God has in store for me next – this last little adventure has certainly been a rollercoaster, but I have also learned a great deal.  What I really miss, what I can do without (e.g. TV is not a necessity – nice but not something that you can’t live without!), Patience (yes with a capital P as you cannot survive here without it!), some of the many challenges of living as an expat (it is not as easy as some might think J).  I have become an avid reader of all types of fiction and now listen to World News that is truly ‘World’ News and not just the American view of the world – it is different honestly!

So for now I have two busy days ahead trying to keep an eye on a team of six people packing up my things, hopefully in a manner that will ensure that they all arrive in one piece back in Wilmington at some point in September – let’s just hope that not too many storms come off the West African coast in the next six weeks so that it is smooth sailing for my container J.