In 1942, Irving Berlin wrote a song that was quietly listened to by a nation at war and tens of thousands of soldiers – men and women (my mom and dad were two of them) – who put on uniforms, many of them living in the middle of hostile war zones.  For them it brought to mind the homes they had left and all they were fighting for.

As we approach another wonderful season of reveling in the fact that the Son of God became fully man, my mind always goes to our first Christmas living in the jungles of PNG, and now the many Radius graduates that are going through their first Christmas away from their families, homes, and churches who sent them out.

To say we were homesick was an understatement.  Beth was 23 and we had two little boys, one and three years old, living without any electricity and still adjusting to the heat of the trackless swamps and lowlands of the Sepik River basin. I was making trips into Iteri to build our house of bark floor and thatch roof, coming back to Beth and kids when my infections from the bugs, chiggers, and mosquito bites got to where they needed to be dealt with…then back for another building trip. I was able to be with Beth and the boys though for Christmas, spent on the banks of the May River.  That was in 1979, no Zoom, skype email, or cell phones.  Just the dark and quiet of the night except for our kerosene lamps.

The world has changed since WWII and since 1979.  Today’s new missionaries to the field will likely have a few ways to connect with family…but in some ways that can actually make it harder!  The vibrant reality of families gathered around a screen where in the background you can see the familiar looks of home and decorations and an awareness of the meal you’re not a part of.  The fact is it takes a while before your new adopted country feels like home to you…ESPECIALLY during the holidays.  But, in time, it does.  After a few years of living among the Iteris, our holiday habits gelled into precious traditions that now we deeply savor as we look back on our years there.

Today, during such times as these, when separations are felt more keenly (we still have a son and his family overseas, since 2006), Beth and I find it helps us recalibrate. Heaven is our home.  Heaven is where every ache of our hearts will be fulfilled. Heaven is where our desire for ‘little house on the prairie’ with loved ones surrounding us can be fully enjoyed. Even as I write this the words of our Savior in Luke 20:34-36 remind me that in Heaven these earthly relationships will be vastly outshone by being in the presence of the One who can truly satisfy our every longing!

When Adoniram Judson left New England on February 19, 1812, he could not know that he would never see his mother, father, or brother again.  It would be 33 years till he made his one and only trip back ‘home’ and the only reason he made that trip was in hopes that on the ocean voyage his 2^nd wife, Sarah, might be refreshed by the ocean breezes and recover.  She did not. She died at sea and he buried her on a cold island in the Southern Atlantic ocean. Life was truly HARD for those gospel workers in that age.

Today overt wars are going on in Ukraine, Gaza, and Somalia, to name just the major ones.  These are faraway places for most of us in North America. It has been the rare family that has been really affected by our most recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Most North Americans have grown to expect a life of safety, longevity, stable homes, and churches. We live in unprecedented times. Our students too come out of homes and churches that, by in large, have wrapped them with love and security to where that strong sense of home can be almost disorienting to be without.  Most adjust to overseas life fairly well, but these holiday times will need to be a time for them also to recalibrate! If Heaven isn’t absolutely REAL this is a cruel joke they are living out. As Paul would say regarding the futility of the Christian life if there is no resurrection, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (I Cor. 15:19) If the resurrection didn’t happen, if Heaven isn’t real and surpassing in every way our life here below…we ARE to be most pitied!

My prayer for our grads and many other overseas workers AND their families is that this time of rejoicing in the incarnation will also be a season to recalibrate and take comfort in Paul’s words in I Cor. 2:9, “However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.’”  In 1999, Bart Millard wrote the song “I Can Only Imagine.” A song that blessed many as he worked so well to try and capture the awe and difficulty of being in His presence…finally wondering “Will I be able to sing at all?” Bart did a great job of capturing the folly of trying to imagine what Heaven will be, but we know based on scripture it will be unimaginably overwhelming in the most glorious of ways, putting our ‘light and momentary troubles’ of sufferings, separations, missed events in a light that will show again how HONORED we were to do ‘without’ for the sake of His Kingdom!

So, for you overseas gospel workers and you, the families and churches they come from, EMBRACE the separations and ache of missing each other. May this season cause us all to long for Heaven more fully and live for His Kingdom purposes more completely.