Day 6 - The price

I have to apologize, but I forgot to take pictures of the house and of my siblings today. I will try to do so tomorrow.
I uploaded some other pictures on my laptop though and one of those I asked Oleg to make on one of my last days at CFNI:


Today was a somehow weird day. After the initial shock of being back home in the strangely familiar, but yet new environment I begin to realize more and more that I am really here and here to stay. With such a big change it always takes at least a week or two for the mind and soul to realize what happened. The body is being moved in a couple hours, but who takes my identity of who I was at CFNI and redefines it in this new environment? Only time can do that job. Well, now I am more and more beginning to feel again, after the last weeks that were so hectic that I basically had no time whatsoever to feel, but ran just on Adrenalin.
One thing that I am now beginning to understand and that every missionary has to know is the price you pay by leaving an environment for an extended period of time. Yes, there is an initial price you pay by leaving your safe and secure home where you knew what to expect and where you had people to relate to. The real price you will pay though once you come back.
I was gone from this social network here in Austria for almost 2 years without any interruption. What I now begin to understand is that life here didn't simply stand still while I was gone. As they had to my friends and family were simply going on with life. And they did so in many different directions. Much of what was once my environment to relate to does not exist anymore. Friends moved out of town or got married, churches quit, christian organizations changed, life went on. What I now realize is that it is very hard to just reconnect with what you left. In regards to many relationships I will have to start over. (or give up on it) The friends that I had when I left are not the same anymore and the friends I had in America are not with me anymore. That is a quite lonely experience and I understand now just a tiny bit the difficulties that so many alumnis had that went out from CFNI, especially to Europe.
How will I cope with it in the end? Only the future will tell...
I will try to hope for the best. At least, after all, even when I seem to be alone, God is with me and he is the one whom I need the most right now.