My sister and her husband, along with their 4 children have spent the past 2 1/2 years in a jungle of Peru. O how I have missed her calls, her voice, her encouragement, her energy and her passion for Jesus! As soon as their plane flew into our hometown this month, I loaded all my kids up in the car and we drove to my parents house at midnight to welcome them home! We absolutely couldn't wait until morning! As soon as I pulled up into the driveway.... We all jetted out of the truck and burst open the front door to get our hugs! All the kids were so grown up, yet each of them looked the same, talked the same and had the same personality! The jungle had not changed them ...it brought the joy of Jesus right out of them!!!! They were so mature and lively!!! O to hear the children squeal with delight at seeing their cousins again! To see the boys wrestling on the carpet, to watch the little girls play doll house, to listen to the stories of their wild journeys!
To hear my sissy playing the piano, my brother in law on the guitar, my mom on the violin, my grandparents dancing with linked arms, as the entire family surrounded the piano singing hymns and praises at our reunion!
I can still feel the sunshine, as we woke up in the morning to my parents backyard surrounded with bright colored flowers and shade trees. We sat in my dad's jacuzzi with our morning cup of coffee.
These are a few of the memories I have filed away, tucked deep into my soul... We didn't visit any spectacular places. We didn't go sight seeing. We didn't have any thrilling, heart-stopping adventures planned for the visiting of their family. We simply embraced the company of each other! We talked. We cried. We laughed. We prayed. We sang. We sat. We slept. We hugged. We talked and talked and talked some more. That is what my family always did best....talking! Growing up as teenage girls, we would have "pow-wows" at the fireplace in our front room late at night . We learned really early on in life, that talking was the best way to handle all our emotional drama! Our dad was our problem solver and our mom would rub our backs, as we cried over boy problems!
So we did what we do best...we talked about life. We all took turns sharing about our life's road maps over the past couple of years. We discussed our praises, our battles, our good, bad and the ugly!
I could ramble on and on about each of the special moments I enjoyed, but I won't. The simple truth is this: Spending quality time with the people that you love, is more precious than anything else on this earth. So as I savor the memories of my last month being reunited to my sister's family...I hold onto our talks. I turn our talks into prayers and ask God for His continued blessings on our families for generations to come!
