...23 Days...

While some days drag on forever, I still absolutely cannot believe that I have been in Zambia for over a year (My mom feels differently)! As I am wrapping things up to come home for three weeks, I am filled with so many mixed feelings. First and foremost I am thrilled at the thought of reuniting with my family and friends back in the United States. I can’t wait to hold my niece for the first time, slumber party it up with my sisters, talk with friends face to face and gasp for fresh Rocky Mountain air. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it! For three weeks I will get to be surrounded by people that understand personal space, know what ‘Venti’ means, and have seen me clean on more than one occasion! Will I miss the men with AK47s walking down the sidewalk? No. What about hearing “Magua, Magua, Magua” (white person, white person, white person). Not even a little bit. And while getting my water from the well really hasn’t been bad, I think I will let the faucet run the whole time I am brushing my teeth. Sorry, Al Gore and company. : )

As I close out a year, I am struck by how little I feel I have accomplished how much I still want to do upon my return. Will one more year be enough? This first year has been so much of laying a foundation-networking, getting a sense of the culture, learning how things are done here. While I know my relationships with people have affected us both, there is still so much I want to teach, to give, to encourage. I am sure at this time next year I will still have a sense of leaving things unfinished, but I am committed to coming back and making the most of every opportunity that is given to me, even fighting for these opportunities if necessary. The last couple weeks in my village have been some of the most encouraging work-wise and relationally. Just this past weekend provided so much encouragement. Some friends from Choma came out to the village to share a film and talk with the people in my village-over 600 gathered together for the Friday night event. The next day Club Mweka doubled in size and we had about 60 kids out playing hot potato. I think God knew I needed that boost if He was going to get me back here to Zambia!

I have been privileged to live in deep community in the United States prior to coming to Africa. Even still, I have learned so much about interdependence from my time of independence on the ‘dark continent’. I love Krzyszt of Kieslowski’s insight into some fundamental differences between Africa and the West. He writes, “Suffering unites people, while affluence and riches divide people. In our time success is fashionable. Strength is fashionable. Weakness is not fashionable. Compassion is not fashionable. Yet these are the qualities that bring people together.” Now I have suffered on more than one occasion with friends and family back home, but that is an exception, not the norm. To have lived in this society where hunger, sickness, poverty, and death are staples of life, I have seen even more the beauty of solidarity. No doubt it has and will continue to shape they way I live my life. Long after my footprints have disappeared from the continent, the fingerprints of those I’ve lived with will remain on my heart.

Dear friends I will see you soon.