A little catching up

So, what have we been up to lately? Well, summer was good--the kids were out of school and they enjoyed the freedom to play with friends out in the neighborhood during the day more.  (Usually if they see their friends during the week, it's at night--most kids' school schedules are fairly rigorous with lots of homework).  We continued our language and culture studies with private tutors, though we had a more flexible schedule with classes being out.  So we were able to take trips and have adventures, meeting new friends, visiting, and seeing life in different places.
Fall is here now, and we are into the swing of the new routine.  Classes started back two weeks ago, and the kids resumed their 3 mornings a week at the local preschool schedule, and we're into a new homeschool schedule as well.  Caleb is five; he'll be six in a month, so he's officially starting Kindergarten this year.  Susanna's is doing some preschool activities with me each day.  And Emily benefits from it all as she toddles around while we learn.  Homeschool usually happens on the mornings they're not in local school, as well as every afternoon.
I've been taking classes this semester instead of Dave, so that's been a change of language learning scenery for me.  I like it--I have 3 two hour classes a week, and only one other classmate, so it's a good set-up for more personal interaction/conversation.  I like my teacher, and it's a course that emphasizes reading comprehension and culture, so I'm really enjoying it.  Dave's still studying too, with private tutors 3 times a week, as well as working on other things related to our life here.
Our friends who came 3 months ago have settled in nicely, with growing friendships and beginning language ability and cultural understanding. We still get together regularly to consult about language and culture learning among other things, but they are now able to depend mostly on local friends (who can speak some English =) for social interaction and whatever needs they may have.  It's neat to see our local friends take them under their wings and care about and befriend them.  And it's been fun to remember our first months here and be thankful anew at the many people and experiences that helped further us along in our own journey. 
Another aspect of life is that we have a part time house helper now.  (Over the last several months we've had several who've come and gone for various reasons). This is the girl whose wedding we went to a while back. She had to quit work while she prepared for the wedding, but now she's back and we're so thankful to have her.  It's wonderful for me and the kids to have a local friend in our home who we can talk with and share our lives with, who helps us and cares about us as well. She is a very gentle, sweet spirit and she's on the journey toward our Dad.  We are trusting for more good conversations with her, and that our family can pour his love to her each day.
So, what's daily life like for us? Well, it's usually learning in the morning (kids either in school or homeschooling, and us either self studying or in class), homeschooling and doing other work in the afternoons, and then having family time out interacting with people in the community in the evenings--either in our neighborhood, at the parks and town squares, or with friends in various environments.  It's always fun to take a family walk, drop in for a visit with friends, or play at the park and make new ones.  When we're out we always run into people we know--one of the advantages of living in a smaller city.  Being with people is the lifeblood of our work here; so the evenings are always our favorite time of day. 
So that's life on the surface.
Under the surface where values and goals and ambitions lie, as we wrote in a recent email update, there's still an undercurrent of feeling in-between.  It helps to keep plowing away towards finishing what we've been working at for this season.  We have some really neat friends here, and love the times we spend with people.  Now we are reaping the benefits of spending so much time and effort to break through the language and culture barrier.  We're not exactly "insiders" now, but it really is a blessing to be able connect with people through their "heart" language, and more than that, to be able to understand more and more their "heart" perspective.  
But as we also work on things to prepare for the next season, I must confess my heart sometimes has a hard time staying in today. We've looked forward for a long time to the day when we are in the place where we're going to plant long term, and as we draw closer to that time, it's easy to only "look forward to" and not put our hearts fully into what's right now.  As a friend of ours like to say, "Wherever I'm at, that's where I am." So that's what Dad's been reminding me of as I go through each day.