Heaven is Home

Home. What a complicated concept. I’ve lived in several countries and have had nearly 30 homes during the whole thing. In just a few months, Ashley and I will celebrate 4 years of marriage. During those 4 years we’ve had 3 different homes.  Bouncing from place to place might be resolved if we could just narrow it down and understand this concept of home. 

Some say that home is where the heart is. Because of all our travels and all of our friends and loved ones, our hearts have been stretched all over the world. Nevertheless, the Bible (or a hymn) tells us that the world is not our home. We are just passing through.

So, yes, Heaven is home. And if I feel like being spiritually technical about the whole thing Heaven is home. But although not exactly elusive, neither is it precisely tangible. So let’s address this issue of a more down-to-earth home. 

While we were in the States we got to spend time with family. We enjoyed cookouts with Ashley’s Dad, with her brother we competed over who’d eat the spiciest Buffalo wings, and then with her Mom we’d go for a walk to get some ice cream or just watch some TV together before going to bed. Their hospitality is not taken lightly. 

But there are other forms of family too. Our home church always makes us feel right at home. Whenever we return we honestly feel as if we’d never left. Their care and generosity mean more to us then we could possibly express in this blog or in any other form of words. (Words have such a way of expressing while limiting what we mean to express!). 

We even had the opportunity to meet up with 5 of our GAP students and at least 4 others who are, in their own special way, a part of our GAP family. It was a sweet reunion. There were plenty of laughs and fond memories to celebrate between us all. 

The Christian family as a whole is just a perfect way to be welcomed home. Another inexpressible reality is the very real family quality sensed with other believers. A pastor friend of ours joined our support team admitting that it was just the right thing to do because we were family! 

And so all of that makes us feel very much at home. Nevertheless, we were – to be brutally honest – relieved to return to the DR. This too is home for us. It’s home in a very different way, but it’s still home. We have the camaraderie of family among our colleagues. All of the SCORE staff, whether the directors of a department or the driver of a bus, are like family to us here. 

Part of the Dominican charm is certainly in the fact that it is our home. We have our pictures on our walls. Our cats greet us at the door. We can help ourselves to what we have in our fridge (right now mostly some of the candy we brought from the States). And, most importantly, I have my books readily available on my shelves. 

Work makes this home for us too. Already this week I’ve been asked to translate a meeting between some of our staff. The other night I translated a devotional, and tonight I have to give a devotional (probably on Jonah). And Ashley has been hard at work every day at the Lily House with new products, designs, etc. And this is only the beginning. There is still so much more to come (that is said with both dread and excitement!). 

But if I really seek solace to this nomadic experience, this experiential restlessness as to where home is, I have to put my eyes back on Heaven.  I just can’t escape it. I keep going back there time after time. No, it’s not me trying to be trite or cliché. It’s just the very real and very pleasant truth (as comforting as every other expression of home I’ve made so far except more so). Heaven is home. 

The day we arrived home in the DR, from having been home in the US, the founder of SCORE International, Ron Bishop, went home to Heaven. He’d been hospitalized suddenly because of a blood clot and things escalated. One feels like adding that things escalated tragically, but that is only true if seen from our limited vantage point. I’m sure from his perspective there is no greater peace or relief. 

We do miss him and remember him fondly. He was more than a founder, he was a leader to be admired and a friend to be loved. He had the presence of a grandfather, both serious and sweet. But soon we will all be Home together. 

Oh, what a glorious day! 

Echoes of Eternity

I’m not going to lie, this has been a hard week for us. Sunday morning we found out that fellow missionaries, and friends of ours, “lost” their little girl.

 Giovanna was born in the Dominican Republic with a heart condition 19 months earlier. And we, along with many others, donated funds and other resources in an effort to get her to the States for a costly and difficult operation. It was a worthy investment. The operation was successful. Then, this Sunday, she passed away.

Neither Ashley nor I had been to a child’s funeral before, and this was our first funeral in the Dominican Republic too.  The viewing is the same day as the passing, and the burials are typically within 24 hours of the person’s passing. During the burial, I translated for two different speakers. The following night at her memorial service, I translated for four different speakers. None of this was easy for me; it’s hard to speak while choking on tears. We prayed and wept often during the days that followed.

At the same time, my sister arrived from Uruguay to be with us during that same week. She had gone to a conference in Honduras and on her way through, she stopped by to spend a week with us here in the DR. We hadn’t seen her in over three years! It was great to let her tour our ministries and favorite places. We loved spending time together with her.

The sad tears for Giovanna’s passing were soon mingling with the happy laughter of being with my sister again. And life is like that sometimes. There is both sorrow and laughter involved. Yet there is something in us that knows that it shouldn’t be like this.

Thankfully, right now, things are this way, we have a capacity for sorrow and joy. Our tears are a valve for us to relieve some of the stress of grief; they are an outlet for emotional expression. But although we appreciate them, we do not enjoy them. We know that this is not the way things should be.

The echoes of eternity resound loudly in our hearts. We know that there needs to be more to life than what we have at the moment. Saying goodbye to Giovanna was so hard, and eventually we had to say goodbye to my sister, after dropping her off at the airport. Once again, the tears were there and again, it was extremely hard to say goodbye. As a Missionary Kid who’s spent most of his life traveling, I’ve had to say goodbye for more than my fair share: and it’s not gotten easier. It never will – not in this life, anyway.

Those echoes of eternity seem to ring loudest when we have to say goodbye because we know that we were never created for goodbye. Mortality is a terminal disease that affects us all, and although you can live your life any way you choose, you know that you can only live it once.

Right now we may have to grieve, but we do not grieve as those without hope (I Thess. 4:13). Instead, we look forward to Heaven knowing we’ll never have to say goodbye again. Why? Because our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Or, as the text tells us: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus (I Thess. 4:14).

But the text continues and at the end of I Thessalonians 4; it exhorts us to encourage one another with talk of Heaven.  So please be encouraged by these words and set your heart on home – because Heaven is right around the corner! Peter tells us that we are sojourners in this land. In other words, just passing through. Heaven is our home. “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and thought you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible…” (I Pet. 1:8). We have authentic hope even in our grief. We also have great joy even in our limitations.

We talk about Heaven being so far away.

It is within speaking distance to those who belong there.

(D.L. Moody)

           Picture below: Us with Carter's sister (Abigail)