Farewell

Our visa has been approved. Here we go to Belgium. If all goes according to plan (but it hasn’t in a long time!) we will leave in just over a week.

Here is the important bit for those who are local. There will be a farewell gathering this Saturday, August 19 at 2pm at Gateway Community Church at 353 E. Donna Dr in Merced. There will be a chance to share memories and say goodbye. We are also eager to have everyone pray for us as we go. Want to bring something? Sure, you can bring a dessert or lemonade or something if you like. We’re not doing a full meal.

The visa process has whipsawed us back and forth between eager expectation and discouragement.

Here are the documents you need to turn in. Actually, it’s these documents. No, it’s these.

Ask the consulate for a reference number. That’s just a local reference number. You need a different one to check the status of your visa application. No, there is no other reference number.

The documents didn’t arrive in Belgium. They will be sent electronically.

The visa will take 2 weeks. It will take 6 weeks. It will take a few months. It could take 9 months.

Your visa has been approved.

The back and forth was not unlike the back and forth of Peter’s treatment. The tumor is shrinking! The tumor is growing. The tumor is shrinking! The tumor is growing. Three times. I have told God we would like a season of renewal. It hasn’t come yet. Perhaps he sees fit to set us greater challenges. Why not? I suspect, though, that once we arrive in Belgium we will get a good season. Along with a new set of challenges, of course.

The back and forth made it hard to celebrate the news. We won’t really celebrate until we have arrived. The travel itself is still a hurdle considering the crisis of our travel last time.

Our six year old asked, “Can we have mussels our first night in Belgium?” Mussels are popular there.

“Probably not the first night, but the first week,” I said. That was enough to make him happy. Nate and I are the seafood lovers. Peter was too. Now we are outnumbered by the ones who are unmoved by the beauty of a mussel, so we will have a private party. (Or are there any Antwerpers who wish to join us?)

Since the last time I wrote, I went on two more two-night backpacking trips. Once with a friend. That trip was perfection. All our choices turned out to be the right ones. Should we set up the tent? Yeah, let’s set it up. As the last stake goes in the ground the rain and hail begins to pound. Should we climb to that point or go up this way? We ended up doing a fun walk along the ridge. And wow, look behind us, we didn’t even notice that.

Should we camp at Granite Lake or Granite Basin? Granite Basin was picture perfect.

Seeing a blond bear was a bonus.

I also took my oldest on a father-son backpacking retreat. We caught lots of fish, jumped off cliffs into the water, watched the glow of a forest fire, saw another fire on top of the distant mountains (no wait, that’s the rising moon, big, bright and orange), went off trail to climb a peak, talked about Peter, talked about manhood, and sex, and growing up. It was good.

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On the last morning, I stood in the sun’s early warmth staring out across Lady Lake to the peak we climbed the day before. I cried, thinking about how I can’t share these moments with Peter anymore. Sorrow is now mixed in with everything else.

There have been some bright points, but it has been a difficult summer. There is no good place to grieve, but being unsettled, unstable, and unable to plan for the future has made it harder. We’re not sure what is grief and what is everything else. We are sure that grieving is in the background of everything now – relationships, emotions, backpacking.

What is the goal of grieving? To return to normal? To recover? Those aren’t possible. The best description I have heard of losing a child was from a memoir of a family whose 19 year old daughter died suddenly from an aneurysm. The father said, “It’s like an amputation. It will heal, but you’re still missing a limb.” What I hope for through my grieving is to become like those I admire: full of sorrow, full of joy, full of compassion, full of love, full of Jesus. I have been blessed to know saints like this, whose faith is an encouragement and inspiration. Pray for us.

To our friends in California and the rest of the US, farewell! I look forward to the work ahead of me as pastor of Antwerp International Protestant Church. I will continue to write. Continue to stay in touch.