Monday, February 13, 2012

Lundi, le 13 février

This morning it was harder than it has been.  I hadn’t been able to fall asleep until very late, and so I woke up very tired and overwhelmed with culture shock.  I walked around getting ready, not trying very hard to fight off the feelings of, “What am I even doing here?”  “I feel useless.”  “This is pointless.  I can’t even communicate.”  The missionaries warned me that I would get to this point.  I felt terrible, and I felt guilty about feeling terrible. 

So I hit my knees.  “Oh God, help me.  I’m sorry I’m giving in to these feelings.  I’m being selfish.  I know you brought me here and that this is your will in my life.  I have no strength today.  Be my strength.  I can’t do this alone.  I need you.  Help me today to love you so much that it bubbles over and embraces those around me.  Walk with me.  Please.  You’re all I have.” 

And then I got up and rode my bike to Bible college.  And now, at the end of the day, it’s strange…because it’s not that I really feel any different.  I still feel inadequate.  I’m still struggling with trying to make my heart and my mind reside in Africa, rather than my heart in Africa and my mind in Arkansas.  I still feel like I’m walking on the edge of failure.  But I smile at how amazing God is…because he taught me today.  He taught me how to feel beyond it.

I can still feel the overwhelming contentment of standing in the heat with Demanta and Rebekah (the two women at the Bible school) as they run my braid through their hands, patiently correcting my pronunciation.  I feel the excitement of knowing I had a whole conversation with them in French/English/sign language as I struggle to communicate with them just a little more than yesterday. 

I feel the laughter that the ladies and I shared when Pastor Jack stopped dead in his tracks at his first sight of my hair this morning. 

I feel their hugs as they wish me goodbye and safe journey and please come and see them tomorrow. 

I feel the wind cooling me down as I zip past the market, breathing in the scent of fresh fruit, and the sun scorching my neck as I stop at a stoplight with two dozen other bicyclers, all smiling at me and greeting, “Bonjour!”   

I feel my bike start to wobble as I let go with one hand to high-five a group of school children who are running past me, shouting, “Nasalla, Nasalla!  Sa va?”  (‘white person, white person!  How are you?) 

I feel the calloused handshake of my ‘favorite’ person here at SIL as he grins that huge African grin and asks me to please turn around so he can ‘be mystified’ by my hair. 

I feel the coolness of a Coca-Cola in my hand as I stand talking to the guard, speaking slowly in French and looking at him expectantly to fill in the gaps of my sentences with words I don’t know. 

And I feel the familiar creases of my Bible cover as I open it and read about Jacob, who left behind his home and his family and the comforts of an established way of life to travel alone to a strange land and new people.  He had no one but God.  I read of Jacob and I think of that day so many years ago when I first knew the draw of Africa…and I feel at home.     

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