Ready to be home

Today has been very low key. We are now staying with the Rahaim family, who are MTW missionaries to Dundee. They are great and have offered so much insight. I am so glad we could spend some time with them this week. We slept in this morning, which was needed, but this afternoon Trace went to a soccer game in Dundee with local pastor, David Robertson. Today has been hard for me, my spirits are low. I am worn down from not seeing my kids and am counting the hours until I'm home. Its evident in my demeanor.

I'm not sure if its homesickness or stress or fatigue, but I'm struggling with my thoughts and decisions about moving. I have been introduced to some of the hard stuff of foreign ministry and the honeymoon is over. I am stressed because we aren't given any time to process this stuff when we get home and its impossible to do that here. One thing Trace and I would like to do is give all our info to our elders and let them pray about and decide what we should do, but I'm not sure that's possible. We have decided we are not coming to Scotland, so for me its Moody or Culcheth. My biggest concern of course is our children. I am struggling with the thought of making this huge decision for them that they will grow up away from family or close church family, that they will struggle to fit in or feel that they belong where ever they go, that their education and life experiences may be more difficult, etc... I don't have enough faith that God will take care of my family and protect my children from all the craziness they will encounter. Is there anywhere to turn that I don't feel like a failure? I heard a story of a Scottish Christian teen(almost unheard of) who visited America and went to a youth group in the South and they compared stories about life for teens in the two areas of the world. She said how there are drugs, alcohol and sex readily available and offered to kids at 11 or 12 and of course you may be the only Christian in your school. The Southern Americans were shocked and the Scottish girl came home depressed by the thought of what she was coming home to and how good she could have in it in the States. That made me think of what we have, as crummy as it seems to us, is better than anywhere else. If we're living in the best case scenario, why am I taking my kids away? Will they later regret living somewhere else when they could have stayed in America? How much am I willing to sacrifice? Am i overanalyzing? Can't God just give me a clear answer?