Well, my feet are on African soil again, finally! It has been six long years since my last time here.
When Jenn and I signed up for the World Race I was so excited that our first three months were to be in Africa. I love Africa and always knew growing up that I would move back someday. I accomplished that in 2008, when I lived in South Africa for a semester, but my desire was not quenched. I even had my groom's cake made in the shape of Africa (thank you Becca, I will never forget how beautiful those cakes were). So there I was looking at a website that was telling me I would be spending a month in Rwanda, a month in Uganda, and a month in Kenya. I cannot explain how I have always felt about Africa, how proud I am of being born in Kenya, and how I have always considered it home. Little did I know that AIM never had any intention of starting us in Africa, so here we are seven months later and I'm finally walking the red dirt roads… but it is not the same. It isn't the Africa I left 24 years ago, it isn't even the`same Africa I left six years ago.
Why? What is different?
I love Rwanda, I love the pace of life here. Language is spoken a little bit slower, walking is a normal mode of transportation, and people take time to stop and chat while passing someone on the road or to sit and enjoy the beauty. I enjoy all the hugs I get from children ages 3-13 who start running toward me at first sight, for no other reason than to get a hug and say "hello, good morning" (no matter what time of day it is). I appreciate going to bed between 8 and 9pm and waking up before 6am.
What is different, what is missing?
What's different is my heart doesn't belong to Africa anymore, it was been torn apart and scattered across the nations. It is in the a church in Costa Rica that has such a passion for building up leaders and sending out missionaries. It is in Nicaragua with a Pastor who is now my brother, a pastor who we knew from the moment we arrived we were supposed to work with because God had given us revelations. It is in the mountains of Honduras, in the warm homes I entered and shared the love of my savior, offering salvation to those who never heard it before. It is in Thailand, in the arms of a boy at Remember Nhu named Sum Ladid (I'm sure that isn't spelled right) who, while I argued with God why I was in Thailand and what the point was, begged me stay very night before I would go home to bed. It is in Malaysia with a pastor whose passion for prayer and evangelism cannot be matched. And, it is definitely in Cambodia, a country that has been torn apart by war and genocide, but where a new generation is raising up and where God is raising up a new Church.
These are the amazing people I will be telling you about in the blogs to come. I want to honor them with my words and share my heart with you, to let it be known that they are missed and loved.
I don't know what will happen in the next 4 months or what place will have the biggest piece of my heart, but I do know that it will never be whole again. I'm ruined, and I'm so thankful. My heart is becoming the heart of my Lord, not just for a place or a person, but for creation! Now when I look at a globe I don't see places. I see all the faces of the beautiful people I have met, and it hurts because I long to see them again but there is joy for times we had together.
Lord, continue to rip off pieces of my heart and replace it with your's.
