Life in Africa

fresh eyes

When I got the list of immunizations I would need to travel to Ethiopia, I didn't even read them. I skimmed right past that section and moved on to the rest of the informaiton in my prep packet. I don't need to get shots... I've lived in Africa. I haven't gotten travel immunizations since I lived in America and made short-term trips around the globe. Oh wait.

Sometimes I seemingly forget. I'm once again living in America, taking short-term trips around the globe. So I promptly scheduled my appointment. (It's today at 10:30, by the way.) {EDIT: It's been rescheduled for next Tuesday afternoon.}

I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, this is just a surfacey reminder of how I've been approaching not only this trip, but this entire season of my life. And of how I need to start looking at things differently. Or rather start seeing things the way they actually are.

This Ethiopia trip isn't old hat. This isn't "been there, done that, got the T-shirt".

My life experiences up to this point make me who I am, but they don't negate the current and future experiences on my journey. And they certainly don't trump them.

The faces I'll see in Ethiopia, the villages I'll visit, the poverty I'll witness, the unshakable pains my heart will feel... they will all be new. Familiar maybe, but still new.

I don't want to glance over poverty because I've seen it before. I don't want to overlook those I encounter because I think I already understand. I don't want to ignore what's right in front of my face because I feel like it holds lessons I've already learned before.

Each person I meet has a story I haven't yet heard, dreams I haven't even imagined, and a present-day reality that is just as real as mine is.

Each person has more to give me than I could ever give them.

I want to listen with new ears, see with fresh eyes, feel with a still-tender heart.

So I am choosing to go as a learner, not a teacher. As a listener, not a speaker. As one who holds closely, not at arms' length.

With eyes and heart wide open.

So I don't miss a thing.

Right now, look at what's around you with fresh eyes. What do you see?

on ethiopia

I have vivid childhood memories of being captivated by the glimpses of Ethiopia I saw on TV. I remember the long, emotional commercials with the graphic images of starving children. I recall feeling a deep sense of tension in my inability to reconcile the fact that I was watching these emaciated, dying people while sitting on my carpeted floor, eating cereal in my pajamas in front of the TV.

I knew something was wrong with that picture, but I didn't understand it.

I still don't.

Even though I've experienced it the world over.

I had that same sense of unreconcilable tension when I flew to Nicaragua at 14 for my first mission trip. I felt it in Amsterdam when I spoke with people at coffee houses, hearing their stories of love and loss. I couldn't shake it in the rural villages of Botswana. And it lived with me in South Africa, ever present, ever pressing.

And still, I have no answers. I don't understand the disparity in the world. The extremes of affluence and poverty found practically on each other's doorsteps.

That deep place in my heart, affected so strongly by Ethiopia as just a young girl, is about to get wrecked by Ethiopia once again. I'm traveling there next month with Food for the Hungry.

FH is an amazing organization, engaging in community development through child sponsorships all around the globe. I've had the incredible opportunity to work with them for the past six months, helping them set up their first-ever Blogger Mission Trip. It has been such a joy to work with my friend Daniel on the planning and preparation for this inaugural trip. And I feel even more blessed that I get to travel with them as part of the team.

There are 6 of us bloggers going, along with a photographer and several FH staff members. I am blown away by my teammates, and am really looking forward to getting to know them more on the trip. I know I have a lot to learn from each one of them. Meet the whole team on the FH Bloggers website.

I know I'll experience the same no-answers, only-questions unreconcilable contradictions in Ethiopia. I know. And I want to embrace them. To wrestle in that space—with myself, with my heart, with culture, with my questions, with Him...

Some things will just never make sense, but that doesn't mean they are to be avoided. Ignored. Disregarded.

No, they are meant to be run headlong into. Embracing the tension to find the Only One Who Makes Sense in the midst of everything that doesn't.

Will you go there with me? Travel with me by following my journey here, on Twitter, and with the rest of my team... And wrestle with me through the stuff that just doesn't make sense?

Let's look for Him together...

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out of africa

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{Hello? Is this thing on? Can you even hear me over the sound of crickets?} Hi. It's been a while, I know. And while I could never do it justice, I'm gonna try to fill you in on the past couple months...

My first week or so in Africa seemed like an emotional roller coaster. Experiencing so many conflicting emotions, sometimes all at the same time, made my heart feel like she had whiplash. I was glad to be back, and yet familiar things brought equal measures of nostalgia and heartache. The acuteness of it all faded with each passing day. I feel like the length of my trip -- though long in every respect -- was a gift in that it gave me enough time for things to become "normal" again. In a way they hadn't felt in a long time.

I hit the ground running and was extremely busy with work. Long, full, tiring days were a distraction for my heart, which was both good and bad at times. And then, right when He knew I'd need it, God forced me to process rather than push it off.

I am a contributing author to a book being published in September. (Crazy, right?!) My portion of the manuscript had been turned in a month or so before I left, causing the editing process to fall smack in the middle of my time in Africa. Ummm... Wow. It was no coincidence that God had me revisit my memoir-style piece about following Him to and eventually from Africa while actually in Africa. It was h-a-r-d. So very hard. But so, so good.

I really enjoyed the whole editing process, though it was strenuous and heart-stretching in every possible way. I am excited about the new direction my writing took because I worked on it on my first trip back to Africa. And I am really thankful for the forced outlet of processing. My heart is stronger for it.

I had an amazing time with Love Botswana and Bridge for Hope. I am beyond grateful that I get to work with these incredible organizations, and I'm already looking forward to my next trip back to Southern Africa at the end of August.

I'm pretty sure my body has no idea what timezone I'm in. I arrived back in Nashville on Thursday. Less than 24 hours later, I hopped a plane to Oregon to surprise my Best Heart's Friend Cathi with a weekend visit. Her awesome husband helped me plan the whole thing so I could be there for their son's first birthday. Lincoln is my godson, and I didn't want to miss his big day! We had a blast of a weekend, filled with couch time and laughter and hugs and cake. What a gift it was to be there and to have my heart filled up with friends.

And now... I am really happy to be home in Nashville. I love to travel and feel crazy blessed that I get to, but I also love having a home to come back to. I'm a roots and wings girl after all.

From Africa to the west coast and now back in Central Time... Here's to the joys of jet lag (and NyQuil)!

Oh! I've been let out of Twitter purgatory! After 30 days -- with 7 support tickets filed and 0 contact from Twitter -- my account was reactivated just as randomly and explanationlessly as it had been suspended. So weird. (Thank you to all of you who implored the powers-that-be on my behalf!)

Well, I've got a suitcase to unpack and laundry to wash and a roommate to catch up on The Voice with. I'll talk to you again soon.

I promise.

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healing in the heartache

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I flew to Africa over the weekend... I'm here for 5 weeks. I am spending a month in Maun, Botswana—the place that stole my heart for Southern Africa when I was only 15—to help Love Botswana Outreach Mission develop communications policies and strategies. Then I'm heading down to Cape Town for a week to work with Bridge for Hope on some project development possibilities.

That's what I'm doing now.

I consult with non-profits, assisting with communications and development—translating my 13 years of leading a ministry in Africa into ways I can strategically help other growing non-profits.

It feels like a natural fit and like I'm in way over my head all at the same time. But I am beyond grateful for the chance I have to do this, and the opportunities I have to still be involved with what God is doing through ministries around the world. Such a tremendous gift.

Bittersweet at times, but still a priceless gift...

I forced myself to find words for what's going on in my heart being back in Africa again. About the unbelievable timing of this trip. About healing in the heartache.

And I'm sharing them over at Deeper Story today.

... ... ...

Fourteen years to the day since I first moved to South Africa, I arrived there again. On Saturday. My first time to return since I had to close our ministry and move back to the States.

Fourteen years.

To. The. Day.

The irony coincidence full-circle timing is unavoidable.

As if I didn't already have a kaleidoscope of emotions wrapped up in this first-trip-back, I go and do it on my Africaversary.

A big hot mess.

That's what I've been. For weeks now, leading up to the trip. On the entire (ungodly-long) flight over. And since my feet touched the ground.

The landscape of my life looks incomprehensibly different than it did 14 years ago. I'm no longer 19, chasing a dream, following a call... heart brimming with hope, expectation, and excitement.

Instead I'm exhausted inside and out... broken... still trying to locate and pick up the shattered fragments of my life... bearing what feels like a permanent scarlet letter... returning to a place that was home for so long, but doesn't feel like home any longer.

In fact—and I'm only realizing this now, as I'm typing it—it doesn't just feel like Africa is no longer home. It feels like she's betrayed me. Cheated on me. Hurt me.

But I know it wasn't her. I know I can't blame her for the heartache my ex-husband caused. And yet, there is heartache here nonetheless.

And there is nothing to do but face it and feel it, and trust the Healer to heal it.

To heal me. Through her.

Because while I don't feel drawn to live in Africa full-time again, I know I will be here often. And no matter what, at some point there needed to be a first-trip-back again, the hardest trip yet.

So these next 5 weeks in Southern Africa will be filled with old and new memories, heavy and light moments, grief and restoration. And then there won't ever be another first-trip-back.

The hardest will be behind me.

That's the joy that's set before me right now. Not sure if that's good, bad, or otherwise, but that's what's helping me keep breathing and keep going.

While she no longer feels like home, Africa still has my heart. She captured it when I was 15, and she will have it for always. Firsts, lasts, and everything in between...

So I'm trusting asking Him for the courage to do it afraid, to seek the healing in the heartache, to show me parts of myself I've lost, and to reveal parts of Himself I've never seen.

Originally posted on Deeper Story. Read the comments there >