Arrivederci Italia

I am sitting here watching my husband try to get a rather large bag to register exactly 50 pounds… no more and no less. This is one of the reasons we are perfect for each other. I would have given up two hours ago, hoping that somehow either my scale was wrong or the airports would be wrong when I arrived to check in. He, on the other hand, has never been satisfied with a “good enough” evaluation of a situation. It is my favorite trait… but only in hindsight We are packing up our things in preparation for Monday morning’s flight back to the Carolinas. Tomorrow will likely be crammed with church services, a potluck and some tearful goodbyes and so we hope to have everything completed by the time we go to bed tonight.

Because we are leaving in two short days I can’t help but evaluate how I feel about what we have accomplished in the 3 months we have spent overseas. There are just a few regrets (John says I wouldn’t be a Hedrick if I didn’t have some sort of guilt). For example, I wish that I had tried a little harder at learning Italian. I have every excuse in the world why I didn’t get very far, but the fact is that I could have made more of an effort. I also feel a little sad that I didn’t get to every family’s house who asked us to come for dinner. There were just so many invitations and we were gone so much of the time. And, I wonder if I had shifted things around a bit if I could have seen ALL of the European Union in 3 months. However, when I think about the things that really mattered to us as we set off on this journey, I feel that nothing was wasted and God made every minute count. We enjoyed incredible family time and met some incredible people. We also caught the vision for what ACCI missionaries are doing in the world. I believe that it was particularly important to spend time here in Italy and to understand in a personal way how difficult the spiritual work is here and the need for us as a mission agencies to lend all the support we can to the Italians trying to make a difference for the Kingdom of God in this country.

We just returned from our last family sightseeing excursion. We traveled to Greece and Turkey for a few days, hopping from Mykonos to Ephesus to Patmos to Rhodes to Crete to Santorini and finally, to Athens. It was Easter week for the Greek Orthodox population that surrounded us and everyone was excitedly making preparations for the upcoming weekend. It was a spiritually significant week for me as well. I cannot describe how it felt to stand in the Ephesus theater where the people were rioting on account of Paul’s preaching (Acts 19), or to look out over Mars Hill from the Acropolis and imagine Paul walking along the same road looking at the same structures erected to the false gods and where he declared, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made with hands” (Acts 17), or to enter into the tiny cave where John recorded the words, “Behold I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 22:12-13)

We knew we wanted to see a lot of Greece in a short period of time and so to move around from place to place efficiently we decided to take a cruise. It meant that we could do most of our traveling at night… go to sleep in one port and wake up at another port by morning. This was our first cruise and although the more experienced cruisers were grumpy about the quality of food and rooms, we were unspoiled and thought everything was comfortable. We chose the ship because it was port intensive and we preferred to spend our time on the islands than to spend it in the ship. The kids, it seemed, did not have the same ambition — they preferred to spend all of their time onboard and were only mildly interested in the awesome archeological attractions we carted them off to. I guess it is hard for 2,500 year old artifacts to compete for the attention of kids when there are buffets of hot dogs and jello and TV in English.

Jacob and Joel also made a couple of friends on the cruise. They were two little boys whose father was American and mother was Canadian. The family is stationed in Norway for three years and were in the middle of year two. I think all four of the boys were eager to play with someone who spoke their language. They spent hours on the top deck of the ship using their coats for sails in the assaulting winds. Fortunately John agreed to be the chaperone for this activity. His hair is much better suited for it. The boys also managed to get in the small hot tub one afternoon. There were three teens in there when they arrived, but they managed to quickly drive them out with the help of their buddies. I guess they drowned the romantic mood with their screaming, spitting water and wrestling. It works every time

Well, it is getting late and John has managed to reach packing perfection here. Everything is fitting and the weight is perfectly balanced. I guess we can sleep well tonight. I love that man! Please pray for the rest of our journey. We look forward to seeing many of you very soon.

Arrivederci, Italia. We will miss you.