9 months

three degrees of separation

Three Degrees of Separation from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.


an interesting panel discussion on the relationship between faith and politics. it is long but well worth the time.

Africa

No one ever comes away from Africa the same. You cannot leave that continent unchanged. It could be the simplest shift in worldview or the heart shattering realization of your place in this world. More often than not it is the latter. It is something about the people, the faces, the smells, the atmosphere of a place that sits so far from home. It is infectious. For me it was the children. I fell in love over and over again. I have never loved the sound of my name more than when it came from their little voices. I was a mother and a sister to thirty-five children for nine months. Not a day went by that I did not want to adopt each one of them. But I didn't; I couldn't. Each day they capture your heart and each night you leave. I cried harder for those children than I have for anyone else.

They made me laugh though, oh how they made me laugh. Africa will destroy you, wreck you. I do not know what kind of person could go to that continent and not let the children break her heart. It will hurt but the joy you will feel is innumerable. When a child is loved, they laugh. The tears will break you but it is the laughter, the smiles that will envelope you. I wish with all my heart that right now as I sit writing this on my bed, I could sit each child next to me. Xolani in my lap, Suphemelelo on my shoulders, Busi on my knee, Ernie sitting next to me singing ‘if you’re happy and you know it.’ I miss them. I hate not knowing how they are, how they feel. I miss not knowing if they are crying or laughing.

No one ever comes away from Africa the same. I am still a wreck, a melodramatic wreck. Do not ever go to Africa expecting to change the world because you cannot. We are all part of something much bigger, together in God's love. I did not have enough love in my heart to offer a single child at Mohau Children Home let alone thirty-five. I offered nothing more than nine months. God's love offers immeasurably more.

Experience

Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Africa, to India, to the hard places to change this world. They go to find themselves, to escape a dead world that keeps feasting on its own insecurities. People leave home, leave the United States in search of something better; they leave for the experience.

I am not sure which is better. To sit at home roasting in the comforts of home, fueling money into nations that need it or to get up and do something for three weeks in your life, see something that will forever change your life, your perspective. Wreck you, so that maybe, just maybe you will go home and tell people what you saw. No one should leave for the experience. I have my apprehensions towards short term trips but who I am to say that a person should not be sent. I know nothing. I have seen miracles and yet I still question whether people should go. We should all go. No matter how long, how short.

If I had it my way, we would sell everything. Everyone would sell everything. We would feast together as one community. The neighborhood of your closest friends that you dream of would be. We would all sit in the dirt. Experience would hurdle over the temporal and become eternal. We would always be encountering, always growing. Comfort would vanish and love would abound.