I’m not sure I like waiting much, do you? At first maybe it’s not so bad, while it’s still a novelty and might not last long. It might initially even feel like a relief – an enforced rest, a good excuse to pause normal service for a while. But as time goes on, it takes its toll. It gets limiting, boring, frustrating, stressful. We Edges are feeling it this week!

Much as we love the UK, we all just want to go home now. And by ‘home’, slightly to our own surprise, all 5 of us mean our basic rented house in Quintana Roo, Mexico. We’re weary of being on the road, living out of a bag, not knowing where we’ll be next month, not knowing when the limbo will end. We want to go back to Mexico, to get back to what we started, to continue carving out a normal life there, and to savour again the joy of simply staying still. We’re gutted about all the things we’re missing out on, the friendships on hold and the opportunities lost.

But we’re waiting.

Initially, as we finished visiting friends and family across the UK in April, we were waiting mostly for an appointment at the Mexican Embassy for our chance to apply for a visa. In brief, that didn’t end well and we never got to apply. Now there is a new possibility, a different potential visa route, so we’ll see about pursuing that in country if we get the chance.

Next, after our second cancer curve ball as a family we were waiting for Matt to get through treatment, and then for his body to recover fully from chemotherapy so that he’s safe to travel internationally again. We’ve reached that happy watershed now, but in the meantime, things have changed a bit and what we’re waiting for has changed with it.

We came to the UK expecting to stay around a month, hoping to return to Mexico mid-April and crack on. Now it’s July, and here we are still hoping! The extra time in Britain has incurred extra expense which has rather changed our financial landscape, so now we’re also waiting for God to provide enough funds for us to get back there and sustain our living when we do.

It might seem nuts to just sit back and wait for God to drop money into our laps to secure our future, but it does feel like that’s what he’s asking us to do. We felt he spoke to us from this verse (James 5 v 7 & 8); ‘Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.’

It’s a lot of money that we’re trusting him for, but he has given to us like this before. In many ways it’s impossible, but nothing is impossible for God. As we see it, this whole Mexican venture was God’s idea from the get-go, and has been financed by heavenly coffers since then in a series of miraculous events. It’s all been an unfeasible proposition right from the beginning, and yet despite that our first 6 months on Mexican soil actually came about. It can be overwhelming when we tally up everything we need in order to be fully funded for each year in Mexico, but I am certain that however frightening that figure is to me, it doesn’t overwhelm God in the slightest. It’s only money, and that’s no limitation to him.

While we don’t question for a moment God’s ability to provide, we do question ourselves a lot in this season. Could we have done anything better? Is this a lesson, an opportunity to revise and rework our approach? Could we have avoided this crux time in any way? We’ve set a final end date on our watching and waiting because limbo is costly, but we want to know we did everything we could to make it work before we hit that point and need to make a big decision. We don’t have as many answers as we do questions, but we think it’s important to remain open to the idea of doing things a different way…because we definitely don’t always get everything right!

An issue that has come up a lot in discussion with other people when considering one possible ‘different way’ is the idea of us being connected to an organisation as we live out our Mexican vision. Particularly when we describe ourselves as missionaries, the expected norm is that we’ll be attached to some mission-focussed registered body that can take responsibility for us, advise us, and support us. That’s what people usually do.

We are up for that. We’ve been actively exploring this idea from the very beginning and although it hasn’t come together yet, we hope it will work out. It’s not quite as straightforward as it might sound though, given that we’re kind of doing things back to front. That is to say, we’re already very sure exactly where we’re want to be, but allocation of a placement tends to be the last step of the process for mission organisations, and one that most prefer to choose themselves. Also we’re increasingly aware, having observed things on the ground, that affiliation with a missions organisation could have a massive impact on our lives in terms of what we do, how we do it, and how we’re received by local people, so we’re very keen indeed to ensure that it’s the right organisation before we get anywhere close to signing up. There are options though, and we’re working on it.

The mixed bag of the human experience means that tough, tricky times so often come hand in hand with big blessings and major bonus moments. They roll together. There have been some definite wins from our extended UK stay – extra time with friends and family, unexpected opportunities to attend camps, being with friends over birthdays for the kids, hanging out in beautiful places, and more unforeseen useful connections with like-minded people, not to mention 3 months more access to chocolate and chips ;-). We’re grateful for all these bonuses, they make up for a lot.

Overall though, these funny few months of finding ourselves in our homeland again on uncertain terms are dragging on a bit now. It’s starting to feel like a marathon, and we’re tired. We wonder where the finish line is. In the mean time, we pack the car and unpack it again, we set up a makeshift home once more in the next space available to us, and we do our very best to make the most of all the good things that each day brings. Just sometimes, we do it grumpily!

And as we do it, we wonder on repeat…how will this all play out? Will we get that miraculous gift drop we’re holding out for in the near future and get back on a plane to go home to Mexico, or will it all go some other way? It’s a stretch, it’s a gamble, it’s a risk. All our eggs are in the one basket. Is it faith, or is it foolishness? From where we’re standing, the only way it can possibly work out is if God does something incredible; so at least if it does, we’ll definitely know it was him! Will he, though?

In keeping with this season; we’ll have to wait and see.