Home

Several weeks ago, I left a comment on a blog about my three favorite things about my home to enter a contest. I didn't win, but here's what I wrote:

Home is kind of a funny word to me. See, for three months at the beginning of this year, I called home a house where I lived with a Peruvian family while I was in Spanish language training in Arequipa, Peru. Then I moved into a church/training center/home where I lived in the same room with 15 other girls on bunk beds three high. We never had hot water, we never had privacy, we never had quiet, we never had good food. But all this is kind of expected when I tell you that I am a missionary in Cusco, Peru. At the end of October though, we moved into our OWN HOME. I now live with only five other people, share a room with only one person, and the best part, WE HAVE HOT WATER!

So that’s my number one: Hot water. Never will I take it for granted again. Of course, we are still missionaries on a super tight budget, so we can’t take hot showers every day, but they are there waiting for us every other day!

Number two: Most of us have lived with roommates at some point in our lives, and sure there are some down sides. But COMMUNITY is something you can’t trade for anything. It’s often messy, because we are people, but I live with five other young, single missionaries who have given up their lives to follow God’s call and see Cusco changed for the glory of God. We get to sit around talking about what we read in our devotional. We get to hang out and chat about the doors that got slammed in our faces. We get to jump up and down with each other when we share that people came to Christ. We get to have worship nights, and occasionally get to lift up three voices singing praise to God in English, since our home is the only place we can do that. We are a family, brought together by God to do his will here, and I wouldn’t trade that community for anything.

Number three: Privacy. Quiet. Good food. It is essentially the opposite of the last place we lived for six months. The OPPOSITE. Praise God for that! And it is home. I am finally home. And it wouldn’t matter if I had hot water, privacy, quiet, or good food. That isn’t what makes it home. I am in the center of God’s will, and so I am finally home.