Distance

The personal cost of missions to me has always been separation from family. As an MK myself I'm familiar with being away from family. When I was growing up in Ecuador, we were always away from extended family. We did construct a kind of virtual family that served as a good substitute, but there are some things you can't replace. After I graduated from high school I went to college in the States, and I was with extended family, but away from immediate family. I talked to my parents sometimes using a quaint old technique called a "ham patch." My dad had a ham radio and he would call another ham operator in the US who would make a collect call to me. Then he would "patch" the call from radio to telephone.
A conversation sounds like this:
"I love you, Mom. I wish we could be together. Over."
"Oh, I know, Honey. Just thirteen more months and you'll be meeting us at SFO. Over."

And at the end of the conversation, "Over and out" then hanging up the phone with your ear numb from pressing it to the earpiece, suddenly far away again.

Now there's e-mail and Skype and video chats, but they are just band-aids on the curse of distance. I think Heaven won't have distance.

For the geeks: Dad had a cubical quad antenna on his one kilowatt transceiver. This antenna was designed by an HCJB engineer in Ecuador in 1942.