I’ve started this blog a million times in my head… but somehow I’ve never actually made it to this page. I’ve laughed, cried, ranted, and gone on and on about my trip… but there’s still a part of me that can’t even comprehend that it really happened. How is it possible that two months ago I was still in Africa, nowhere near ready to say goodbye? It honestly feels like a dream.
Now I see posts from a new team just beginning their journey in the Caribbean and I am unspeakably envious of them. While my trip is bonded in a dream-like past, their trip is so real and so present. I’m jealous because I know their lives will change in ways they don’t understand. Their hearts will fill with love for people they never thought they’d know, and break for stories that seem unable to be true. They’ll meet with God and experience His goodness in such a big way, and will reach for Him during times of genuine need and struggle. I know, without a doubt, that they will cry, will laugh, will ache for home, will hate what they see, will love what they see, and will worship through it all. And I am jealous.
I’m jealous because I see myself already becoming comfortable in this culture again. I want more, I want bigger, I want better. I wish I could be back in the place where I challenged those desires. I wish I was in the place where my heart swelled, my smile expanded, and my joy increased daily. I long to be with the people who really, I mean really, understood what I was experiencing and who really had hearts and passions that aligned with mine. But with every ounce of me that fights my fate right now, God pushes back with twice the force of “You are here now. Meet me here.”
I could spend the rest of the semester, the year, my life (who knows, right?) yearning for the past. I could count down the days until I have the chance to go back. I could look at the world and the people around me and look at all the things that are different, are hard, are not Africa…
Or I could meet with God where I am now.
I could challenge the thought that my life isn’t as important here, because if I let God control my days, they’ll all be important. (Please don’t read that as an excuse to live the American Dream out wholeheartedly, and please don’t see that as my own excuse to be comfortable. I am confident that God calls us to live uncomfortably at times, maybe all the time.) I can take who I am, where I am and give it to God. Still. Even in America.
Here is what I know: That right now I am a college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That the previous sentence will probably only be true for the next year and a half. That I live with 5 wonderful women who pour love and fun into my life and that is a gift. That God is just as present in my life here as He was in Africa. That when I’m feeling the weight of that 8,700(ish) mile distance, that’s me not leaning on God for support through this change. That I’m going to struggle with this for a while. And that Satan flourishes when I become comfortable and when I doubt what I can do and what God can do through me.
So here’s what I must do. I must love my neighbor, whether that’s the guy who rides his bike brings me cana (sugar cane) in Mocuba, or college students on Brooks Street. I must share my heart, whether that’s with new friends in Lesotho, or new and old friends in Madison. I must seek God’s goodness, whether that’s while seeing the lingering effects of Apartheid in South Africa, or while writing a paper for Experimental Psychology (not that the two are at all comparable, but trust me, neither of them are pretty). I must live and hope in the glory of God, here, there, and everywhere in between. And that, my dear friends, is the most challengingly beautiful thing.
I want to write more about my trip for you. I want to share some of my teammates’ pictures if you haven’t seen them, I want to tell you more about why it’s hard to be back. So keep an eye out! And if you’re a young adult and have liked anything I’ve said ever at all, have thought “Wow, I’d love to do that” when hearing any of my stories, or want three – six months to build up an incredible Chaco’s tan, check out Immersion trips coming up in the future. Yep, shameless plug. Just trust me, you won’t regret it.
lovefromafrica 