Hope ahoy, Crewmates.

Water, water everywhere...and yet, I feel so dry...

Anyone else on the AFM feel this way right now?  I know y’all are out there.  I seem to keep hearing the same things from fellow crewmates: “I just feel so tired/dry/weary/worn/depleted/…” - fill in the blank.  We’re all so tired, and we don’t know why…

I met a man this morning, a teacher whose brother has lived in my hometown of Portland for the last 15 years..  As he told me this, and agreed with me how similar Oregon and Western Cape are, I felt that twinge of “my home—you know my home!”.  I met him while we were at his school, sharing with his students about Mercy Ships.  We showed videos to a group of school kids of our home in action during the field service—this beautiful, rusty, crazy, wonderful ship of ours.  Just then, I felt it, again—the twinge.

Of course!  AFM, we are homesick!  “Stacie, you’re crazy—the ship is home, we’re on the ship, so we can’t be homesick”.  Think about it for a moment, though!  When you think about missing home—the home you left on land—what do you miss most?  Pulling the weeds?  Cleaning the gutters?  Cleaning up the basement after it’s flooded?  Of course not!  You miss long baths; candles and roaring fires; having a beer in the backyard while you grill; hanging things on the walls without magnets; toilets that don’t sound like they’re trying to suck the entire universe when they flush.  When you leave the ship, what do you think you’ll miss most?  The rust-tainted water; two-minute showers; signing up for a laundry spot; hearing your neighbors snore through the walls?  No!  You’ll miss the patients in the hallway; the orphanage you spent every Saturday morning at; the sounds of worship floating up from the ward that wakes you up on Sunday morning; watching your friends come alive as they do the things they are passionate about.  Sure, we’re on the ship: but if the old adage that “home is where the heart is” holds true, than we haven’t been home for months.  We’re a couple hundred passionate people who aren’t doing the things we love.  We aren’t seeing the patients we want to see.  We aren’t hearing the worship come up from the ward that we want to hear.  We aren’t feeling the warm and fuzzy feelings which assure us that the things and people we left back home were not left in vain.  We no longer have a ship without a country...but we do have hearts without a home.

So what do we do about this?  Well, the good news is that this time next week, we’ll be heading to Madagascar.  Imagine that!  We’ll finally see the friends we love, our dear Advance team, standing on the dock waving at us.  We’ll finally have orphans to love on, patients to heal, new friends to make.  Soon, dear friends: soon.

The even better news?  We will always feel homesick.  Why?  Because this ship really isn’t home.  Portland/Amsterdam/Accra/Sydney isn’t home.  Madagascar won’t be home.  Heaven: heaven is home.  We get a little piece of that every day on this ship, as we see lives transformed, love transcending culture, and as we see God’s heart for the nations in tangible, unforgettable ways...but friends, it’s just a little piece.  There is a whole lot more we will get to experience on the other side of eternity.

So, bottom line: how do we respond to our homesick hearts?  I think we begin by praying.  Pray for Madagascar.  Pray for the thousands of lives that will be changed by our time there.  Pray for all of the wonderful things we deeply miss right now that are finally just a few, short weeks away.  Thank Him for the way He has smoothed our path to Madagascar.  Most importantly?  Pray that as long as we are on this side of eternity, we will always continue to have hearts without a home.