On Sunday, A. and I woke up at 4:15 a.m. To take a cab to the Amtrak station for a 5:30 bus to Seattle. From there, we hauled all our luggage onto the sky train and crossed the city. We waited six hours in the airport before our flight to Denver, our layover there, our flight to Tulsa, and then our hour drive across the state border to arrive in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Needless to say, we were tired when we got here! Right now we’re thankful to be spending restful time with A.’s family, and to be enjoying roaring fires in the wood stove in their living room.

Our last week in Vancouver was good. We felt a sense of closure with our last community dinner, last Vancouver sushi run, and last evening of casually hanging out in living rooms with friends. It feels good to be moving onto the next phase, but it was sad to say goodbye to our housemates, our teammates, and to the rest of the community– we miss them already. It’s interesting– we probably have less in common with most of the people in that intentional community than we did with our college friends, in terms of background, life experience, etc.  But it has been a really rich experience to build deep friendships with people that are based on our common passions and convictions and our choice to live together rather than just becoming friends out of situational proximity (happening to be in the same class, or dorm, or city) or because we have a lot in common. We are inspired by the humble way that they are turning their little corner of the world upside-down every day, and by the quiet but stubborn defiance of injustice that runs through even the small details of their lives. It’s encouraging to think that we’ll see most of them again.  

Our time in Vancouver has been a season of rhythms.  Rhythms of cooking, cleaning, eating, and praying together; rhythms of work and rest, social time and solitude.  Weekly date nights and weekly Sabbaths.  I hope we can carry on some of those rhythms of prayer and rest as we go back into Nomad Mode for the next few weeks.