Favorite things on sabbatical.
Ian and I have been on sabbatical for two months now and it has been glorious. When we are at home in Eswatini, we have always been good at keeping Sunday as a day of rest (a sabbath day). We stop working by 6PM (close the gates, let out the dogs), putting physical and mental boundaries around our lives. What we have learned in the past two months during this much-needed break is that those limits weren’t sufficient to stave off exhaustion. Years of fire, floods, crime, death, betrayals, and heartache have taken their toll on our bodies, hearts and souls. We travel to North America once or twice a year, but we hit the ground running, and go from morning to night until we get back on a plane and fly home to start our “day jobs” again. Therefore, those trips were never a time of rest, as some may have thought.
Family, rest and restoration have been our focus for the past two months. I think we have both slept 10-12 hours every night, and wake up refreshed, with nothing to do! It’s quite unfathomable, but we are loving it. During this time, we have also been reading lots of books, searching the internet for things we never had time to think about before, enjoyed uplifting podcasts, watched movies, shopped (perhaps too much) on Amazon and thoroughly enjoyed InstaCart. We cook at home 7 days a week, and usually enjoy it, but we have really enjoyed UberEats and take-out food, only cooking twice since we left Eswatini! We have walked more than 160 miles and had lots of quiet time to pray, reflect and enjoy each other’s company.
As we look towards our last month of rest (with a weekend of “fun work” in the middle), I thought I would stop and share a few things that I have discovered and have LOVED. Kind of like Oprah’s Favorite Things…but just Janine’s.
Here we go.
Janine’s Favorite Things
- 1. Health: Hydroboost Skin Care – a whipped body balm to moisturize our sun kissed skin! Even Ian is using it!
- 2. Movies: Ordinary Angel (Hil
l - 3. Church: Destin Beach Worship was the best, basking in God’s glory as we sang worship songs with the waves rolling ashore to their own rhythm. We had communion at two other churches we attended, something that we miss very much.
- 4. Food: did you know you can buy fresh shrimp at Publix and they will steam and season it for free, and in 3 minutes? Definitely the best “food find”, and we didn’t have to cook it!
- 5. Books: Untangle Your Emotions (Jennie Allen), and Don’t Believe Everything You Think (Patrick Ugynen). Interesting and enlightening.
- 6. Friends: We are thankful for the love of friends who have supported us on this journey of rest. Thank you Teri and Rod McClure for sharing your beautiful place in Florida with us and giving us a home for a few weeks. Thank you Jeni and Sean Hudson for welcoming us to your home in south Florida for a few more weeks of rest, restoration, boating, swimming, use of your convertible (!), and thanks for the delicious welcome meal!
- 7. Family: It’s been so fun to be able to be in the same time zone as our new Grandson, Beck, so that we can do video calls any time of day with Spencer and Jane and watch him grow, gurgle, coo and even sleep. Chloe started her new job in Dubai and is ROCKING IT! I love being available when she gets home from work and can just call to tell me about her day. Once we are back in Eswatini there will only be a two-hour time difference between us, which makes communication so much easier.
We look forward to the next month and are excited to see all that God has in store for us as we continue to listen to His voice and do what He tells us to do. I hope you join us in doing both of those things too.
Janine
