Packing during uncertain times.

 Packing up for a short trip. One night going and one night on the return spent at Ortlip, the mission complex by the seaside where the boat will pick us up to travel to LaGonave for a couple days of team meetings. Should be easy. We lived there 9 years, we know what to expect even through it’s been years since Cory last visited and 4.5 for me. This will be Fritzlin’s first trip.

There are the normal things to think about, coolers for when we shop for food on the way home. It’s been over two months since we returned to our mountain home and Cory has not traveled down for supplies. Any items or books that we want to share or donate to others who may have greater need or will be blessed by items we’ve acquired from guests or other missionaries over the years that we no longer need or think we need. With no younger child a few boxes contain children’s books to be shared with a children’s home on LaGonave and missionary women planning to attend a retreat at Ortlip next month. 

Wild local crocus

Swimsuits, sunscreen, bug spray and light-weight clothes that have sat in storage for months or years waiting for a trip like this are found and packed. The needed bathroom items, reading material, fun things to occupy Fritzlin during the meetings should he not find ways to entertain himself. 

But there is another layer of items to be packed. The ‘what if’ category. The one that past experience, memories, current conditions, frightening possibilities, and strategic thinking all mix together into a loud whisper and prompting that cannot ….will not be ignored. 

The items that will be carried because of the haunting, slim possibility that during the 4 day trip the simmering anger and daily protests occurring in Port-au-Prince could continue to spread and grow until they explode and trigger an evacuation of our team. The symptoms stirred up by old tensions that precipitated rapid planning and packing when we were told to go in 2004 and 2019 will not allow the ‘what if’ whispers to be silenced. 

The apprehensive mental strain demands packing ‘in case’ our return would be delayed.  The packing consists of a few pounds of school books, journals, official paperwork,  personal Bibles and warm clothes, needed for hours in cold airports [and for the first hour or so down the mountain since we’ll have them].

The nagging uncertainty pushes us to prepare the house for being gone far longer than 4 nights: buckets under areas that leak, plastic covering over the guest bed and couch, the refrigerator divided into-' please eat' section and 'just leave be' categories. Knowing that the guys would still have to do some tasks like moving out the plants and orchids in the windows should our return be delayed. 

Acknowledging the possibility that trouble could prevent any travel or if the road is blocked that we may need to turn around and head back home before spending even one night away. The painful debris of past plans that never reached maturity due to ’trouble’ swirl around bumping into hope here and there and preventing all but the strongest hopes from growing and flourishing. 

Once our objective is reached, the travel plans behind us turned into experience and history then and only then can one let the excitement build and be celebrated. 

The lifetime of training kicks in...that when you depart for a trip you need to clean, wash-put away dishes, wipe out the sink, make sure things are put in their proper place just in case someone should have to enter your home before you return kicks in and causes last minute inspections, review of list, and cleaning. Thankfully this busy work can help occupy the mind, pushing back the wondering, pondering what the days to come will hold.

Details big and small..have we thought of the important ones?  The ones that would have the biggest impact if not dealt with in a timely fashion, or would be hard to explain in sufficient detail to be carried out the way we would want? 

The night before will see a pad of paper and pen alongside my bed incase the mind remembers something important in the dark watches of the night and manages to wake me enough to take note of it. 

 In the end, we will do our best and leave the rest in the Lord’s very capable hands. Thankfully He not only authors the adventures we experience in this life but He goes along with us, each step of the way.