Praying hard

Well, Mark is in Haiti. We haven't heard from the team today, but we know that they arrived safely on Sunday morning after leaving Tulsa on Friday afternoon. There was a hold-up on Saturday morning when they were supposed to fly from Fort Peirce in Florida to Haiti, because of the bottle-neck situation at the Port au Prince airport. But they're there now, and I'm checking my emails every 15 seconds to see if the contact person at the clinic has heard anything from them yet! The missionary contact that they had planned to work with in Haiti didn't pan out, so the team from In His Image is working with the Salvation Army to provide medical care to survivors. I am partly very jealous that he got to go and I am staying home with Anna ... but at the same time, I feel like he is there representing both of us. I certainly feel like my mind and heart are over there till he gets back (and probably for a good while afterwards too), even if my body is not!
I have felt very peaceful about him being gone; I am most aware that he's not here in the evenings because he's never at home during the day anyway, so I'm not pining away all day by myself or anything! I am very conscious of the fact that the head of my home & family is not here, though. I don't quite know how to explain it. The word 'covering' best describes it, I think. Now that Mark is gone, I am very keenly aware that he is the head of our home and our little family, and that a such he provides a spiritual covering for me and Anna. I'm not saying I'm under some kind of attack now that he's gone, because there are so many people praying for me and us right now that I feel very well taken care of. But it still feels different. I'll be glad when he's back on Sunday. (Hopefully Sunday, anyway!) And then .... England!