Pilgrim Soldier

We have arrived safely in England and are now starting to take over the in-law’s house for the next ten days.

On Friday we spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon doing the packing for our holiday, and watching the removal men putting the finishing touches to the packing up of the flat. Around 2:30pm they started to take the 79 boxes/packets/pieces of furniture down the 4 flights of stairs to the lorry. There was an emotional moment as Sian’s bed was taken past our bedroom door and the reality of the situation sunk in!

After we did some of the cleaning that was needed we headed off to Sarah & Aivis’s flat to spend the weekend with them. There was a slightly surreal moment as we realised that our first night in Latvia had been spent on their sofa bed and that we would now be spending our last 3 nights on the self same sofa bed! This was one of a number of closure moments that we have experienced over the last few days.

Most of the weekend was actually spent simply relaxing with Sarah & Aivis which was so nice after the hectic nature of the last couple of weeks. Sian and Josh spent most of the time playing together and this included a series of several races down the hall of the flat. Aivis took a number of photos of them and in the one you can see the sheer concentration that they put in before the obligatory “1, 2, 3, GO” command was given.

Going to Riga 1 corps on Sunday was going to be difficult. For me, Riga 1 has been the corps I have spent the longest time at of any corps I’ve soldiered at. With the way officership works this is likely to remain the case until the day I retire! Sian couldn’t quite understand why we were “going back home”. For those who don’t get this, for the last 6 years we’ve lived, worked and worshipped within the same building and for Sian the whole building has been her own supersized house. She’s been equally at home in the flat, Corps, Patverums, and Regional Headquarters!

The meeting itself was really good, if a little noisy from the various children, at times. Both of us got a chance to have a word, mine being a testimony I’ve been trying to give for a couple of weeks now, and Zoe’s being the Smith family farewell message! We were prayed for as a family and for me personally, that settled my mind a little bit more!

Sunday night saw us back at Sarah & Aivis’s and Aivis took a few family pictures for us on both my camera and his own.

Then came Monday. After a hectic morning finalising the repacking of the holiday bags we headed back over to Regional Headquarters for the final little things and the official farewell. A few words were said by our Regional Commander before we had coffee and then we just spending time chatting to people. We did our final bits and pieces and then left for the airport.

Everything went really smoothly and after a quick and uneventful flight we arrived at Gatwick to see Zoe’s mum and step-dad, and The Salvation Army’s Overseas Services Secretary, Elizabeth Burns, waiting for us. After a lovely cup of iced latte (paid for by THQ) we loaded up the cars and headed off up the motorway to Taunton, where we finally arrived at 11:40pm.

A long and emotional day was finally over. The reality of our return has not really started to sink in yet. As I write we’ve been back less than 24 hours and both our girls are fast asleep in bed. The next few days will be quite busy, but its nice to be able to relax fully for the first time in weeks.