as of this week, we are officially over the halfway point of month eight! The Race will be over in less than six weeks, and everyone seems to be fighting the same battle on my squad– trying to remain present while also being excited and prepared to go back home.
For this week’s blog I wanted to share my journal entry for this morning, April 18th, 2019.
Good morning, Jesus! Thank you for this beautifully cool morning and the half-day at ministry today. I pray you’d help me to remain joyful and thankful throughout the day. Thank you for the gift these kids are and for loving each one of them as much as you love me. Jesus I pray for every single one of them that within their lifetimes they would understand how much you deeply love them. Even after we’ve gone and they don’t remember us, or even now, even if we’re just another group of white people in their lives for a few months, just keep telling them and showing them how deeply you care for them.
Thank you for this short week of ministry and this Easter season spent in the bush of Africa. I think this will be the first Eater Sunday of my life not spent at church. It’s starting to hit me how ready I am to be home– to wake up late on a rainy Sunday morning, go to the gym, make breakfast at home that’s not plain eggs or oatmeal with really good coffee, and watch an episode of two of New Girl or the Office alone…wow I really miss being alone…But it just hit me within that day-dream that when I’m home and I’m doing all of those things I’m going to be sitting on the couch thinking of Zanti’s face, Joyella care-point, Spasha’s arms around my neck and hearing her tiny voice sing the same line of the one song she knows over and over (na na na na na na, na na na na na na), and the general sounds of chaos– kids laughing, screaming, playing, eating, singing, talking, and crying with chickens in the background. I don’t think this country would be as hard as it has been. I didn’t think I’d ever enjoy going to care-points every day. I didn’t think I’d start dreading our last day of ministry. But leaving Swazi is going to be hard and I will miss it. More than I’ll ever understand now, in the moment, while I’m still living the dream. You really are going me your heart and your love for these kids, Jesus. There’s no way I could feel this from my own flesh. Thank you. Help me to remember to actually live in this dream, because I dreamed about the Race for so long. Help me to stay present and to not waste my final weeks here dreaming about whatever’s next or waiting for me at home in America. I signed up for nine months, not seven and a half + a month and a half of dreaming and planning the sext season.
thank you for reminding me, Jesus.
So the Race ends on June 1st when I land at JFK in New York City and I have to say goodbye to the community that has become my family over the past nine months. June 2-4 I’ll be in Minneapolis but after that I have no plans and no idea what the next season looks like for me. I’m not nervous or anxious but I am super curious to see how the Lord provides for me and where he’s going to take me. Grad school? A full-time job? A discipleship school? Back overseas? Waiting? I don’t know. And I don’t really care right now, because I signed up to do nine months of missions and it was a dream that spent over a year in the making. I’m still living it right now and I’m not willing to sacrifice the ending of this dream because i’ve been dreaming about something that belongs to the next season.
It’s just something to think about.
How much of our time and how much of our lives do we spend thinking about what’s next and forgetting that at one point where we are right now is what we once spent a lot of time dreaming about?
To be honest, I don’t think I want to know.
