A Note to our Friends...

Hey everyone!

So it's been way too long since we've blogged (me in particular...have I even blogged since we got here?), but life is going at a blistering pace here with work, many church commitments, and general day-to-day life. The pace of everyday life here is great and totally relaxing, but there's a lot to do when you're "the Americans."

I promise that sometime in the next three weeks, I'll give a full-on update about life in Aberdeen and what we're up to, etc; but for now, all I've got is a public service announcement. It turned into a long one, but PLEASE READ IT ALL. Wait, that's not emphatic enough...READ IT ALL, NOW!!! DO IT!!!! !!!!

Okay, for those of you that aren't aware (I don't even know why I made that qualification since I believe our readership consists of our parents and the censors). Aaaaaaanyway, we're coming up on our one and only trip back to the States until next August. We'll be arriving the night of the 23 Dec and leaving on 6 Jan. This has presented itself with the opportunity for awesome reunions and joyful hug-fests, but also with a bit of a logistics nightmare due mainly to the fact that Americans are totally gipped on time away from work, and can only spare the week of Christmas to take off of work (if they're even lucky enough to get the whole week).

So while we're tempted to piss and moan about how hard it is to see everyone and all, we've chosen to see the current "problem" as the huge blessing that it really is. God has blessed us with the greatest gift besides a restored relationship with Himself: the gift of family and friends that love us and care enough to spend time with us for no other reason than that they love us. You can't buy this stuff, and if you could, it wouldn't be work anything. Freely offered love is a gift that God Himself says He's jealous for, and yet He has not withheld from us the very same thing, once again proving His goodness. "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." -James 1:17

So when I pull myself away from my "self", I think I see this a lot more clearly, and I can thank God properly for the fact that He has given us more encouraging, deep friendships than (sadly) we have time to give honor to over the course of a trip home. I know this is a blessing that not everyone has, and that I could easily lose by being a jerk or not treating you all like a good friend should, so I want to you all to be sure of the fact that I love you and that I don't take your friendship lightly.

This brings me to the aforementioned problem...we are stuck in the middle of a God-blessing wrapped in a logistics nightmare: it seems that out of all our friends and family, the most anyone has off is the full week of Christmas and New Year's Day. Most of you aren't that lucky and will also be working the tail end of the week of Christmas. So here's how that plays out: we have two families and at least 6 friends or groups of friends that all have the window of the 26th to the 28th to hang out and have expressed interest in seeing us. And in the vein of the last couple paragraphs, I want to say again that it's an honor for us to be able to hang out with you. However (the bad part), the only way it will work is through us making a schedule and dividing our time up as best we can, knowing that this could hurt feelings and lead to people feeling like they didn't get enough time with us.

As you hopefully know, Whitney and I are both of the opinion that none of our friendships are so base and trivial that they should be degradingly turned into a line item in our planner (well, some my friendships are pretty base...but you know what I mean), but we've reached the point where there's no other way to do it. To give any our friends any time at all is going to mean a schedule that we'll have to be pretty firm with. And as I alluded to earlier, even though we're going to schedule times to hang out and make time for all of you, we probably won't be able to give any of you the time and attention your friendships deserve. All I can offer is an apology and the request that you don't write us off as bad friends, or worse, legalistic friendship-box-checkers...the Baptists will get that one!

So here's my plea for all you guys: if we ask to meet you at a Starbucks or ask you to come by either of our houses for just an hour, please don't feel like we've belittled your friendship or think you're any less important to us. If we're firm and tell you we can only see you at a certain time, please don't be offended or think we're being jerks. And if conflicting schedules mean that we just can't work it out to see you at all while we're in the States, please know that we're packing - literally - almost all of our close friendships into two and a half days, and trying to spend time with our families as well. We by no means wish it had to be that way, but that's the lot that we've been given.

For those of you we can't see, and the rest of you for that matter, plan on partying HARD with us when we get back. There's so much joy we get from each of you, and three days (or even two weeks) is way too little to do it justice. If anything, this year abroad has shown us how much we miss all of you, and how much your friendships personally built us up, so we want to spend as much of the future as we can celebrating all that God has done in bringing our paths of life together.

Tha gradh againn oirbh! (that's "We love you all" in Scots-Gaelic) And we can't wait to see you in the next few weeks!

-Sander