How was our vacation? Are we well-rested?
It remains “funny”. As soon as we are (finally) back “home” after a trip, the question inevitably follows:
“How was your vacation? Are you well-rested?”
Let’s put it this way. This trip lasted 26 days. During that time, we covered 2,200 kilometers, slept in 8 different places, had 14 appointments, and… well, 7 days “off”… in total…
Sounds like a wonderful time-out, right? 7 days off in almost a month? Well, no. Because that includes weekends. Oops. Weekend days when a normal person has time off, but we don’t. That’s actually when we work the hardest. Where someone with a regular job would have about 8 weekend days off during those 26 days, we had 7. Oh, those 7 days also include travel days, so truly off? Well, not really… And we haven’t even mentioned the workdays where we easily log 11 hours a day.
So, how was our vacation? What vacation? Are we rested? No, quite the contrary. “Completely exhausted” comes closer to the truth.
Missionary work is work, not a hobby. And it is certainly not a regular 40-hour workweek job with 5 days of work and 2 days off. Quite the opposite. And yes, when we do have a day off, we certainly go see family, friends, or visit a museum, but a vacation? No, it doesn’t even come close.
Do we enjoy it? Absolutely. We love our work and think it’s wonderful to be able to do it. But in all honesty, sometimes, very sometimes, we secretly long for a normal job. One with a fixed salary, pension, health insurance covered, and (say) 24 actual vacation days a year.
And now? Now we are going to work FULL steam ahead in Schwerin for a week and a half to catch up on all our backlogs—because the “home” front just keeps going in the meantime. And after that? Then we’re hitting the road again for another two weeks.
And vacation? We hope and pray that we can actually take a week off somewhere in December. At least if finances allow it, because these kinds of missionary trips also cost money… money that isn’t really there.
So, oh well. If someone asks us how our vacation was now, we usually just say “fine” and laugh about it together. Because what we do is so miles away from a normal job that words simply cannot describe it.
