fading

One week ago today I was saying Good-Bye to those I loved in Freetown and now here I sit at my mom’s house after opening all my Christmas gifts completely immersed back into life in Omaha. When I came back from Freetown, I was noticabley darker than those around me from all our time in the sun. It is a fun and noticeable reminder of my time away. However, I have noticed it is fading. What brings tears to my eyes is that I feel like more than just my tan is fading and we have only been back a week!! Freetown seems like a lifetime ago and a world away. When I first got home, I felt like I had been dropped onto a different planet. One that looked familiar and seemed like somewhere I should know but one that definitely felt foreign. I would think of Freetown and I would long to be back. Faye had told us that transitioning back home would be difficult. She gave us the example that we are from a yellow world and went to a blue world that we are coming back green and we will feel like we don’t fit. When we first got home, all I could think about was how blue-green I felt and I didn’t think I would ever feel “normal” here. What grieves my heart the most is that it is already getting easier…..I think some of the blue is being washed away and that tears my heart up. Being Christmas week, I think I have been thrown back into the swing of life here faster than I would have allowed myself had it been a different time of the year. Our world holds many decadent distractions…entertainment galore, decadence in every area of life and the permeating “need” for more things that make you fit better in this world. I am sad that I am already finding myself slipping back into these thought patterns and even letting my schedule me filled up so quickly. I have barely spent any time with the Lord the past few days and I am feeling so dry. I feel like I need Him and His presence more now than I did when I went to Freetown. My heart has been battling lots of lies the past few days about my own worth and the value of my time in Sierra Leone. I have been bombarded with thoughts that I made the time out to be more important than it was, or that I wasn’t effective in my time there, or that even though I am heart broken about being away from the kids that they really don’t miss me, that I don’t fit here and that I am not missed there. I know with my intellect that these are lies…I can see that as clear as day. However, somehow my heart is heavy and saddened when these thoughts come by force. I have been busy and have let myself be distracted by things to do and by entertainment. I need to make Jesus a priority and set some time aside to be with Him. The other day I was so overwhelmed that I pulled off to the side of the road and spent about 10 mins or so praying and being with the Lord. That time has gotten me through the past few days. He is so good and kind and faithful to meet me every time I seek Him. I just need to seek Him more. I know that this post is not exactly uplifting and happy but this is where I am at right now and I need your prayers. My mind is all over the place and so I will try to post more often, so that I can process more of what I am feeling. That will be good accountability for me to process these things out loud.

time 'done done'

I sit here at the internet cafe for the last time. I am with my Lighthouse friends David and Papane. The past few days have been a blurr. They have been full of wonderful times of sharing and being with the people that I have grown to love. It is only the grace of God that is getting me through all these Good-Byes. They are beautiful and fun times but so HARD! I am not going to blog long today. I just wanted to say thank you for all your support and encouragement. As I come back, I will need more prayers than I did when I was here! I have so many questions and transitioning back to life in American is harder than one would think...so many emotions. Please pray that enemy would not be able to distract me or to take away all the things that the Lord has shown me and put in my heart. There are a lot of things I have learned and still need to unpack. Thank you and I will blog when I get home about how I am doing and I will try to post more pictures. Merry Christmas!

soaking it all in

The past few days have been remarkable!!! Sunday, Jeremy and I went and visited to the family of one of the kids we are friends with on the street, Kande. His family is so beautiful and warm and inviting. His mother, father, brothers, sister-in-laws and many little nieces and nephews all live in the house and they all greeted us with big smiles and warm hearts. Africa hospitality was at it's finest. Kande's mom fed us upon arrival (and I have to say that I do not like the dish his momma served but she cooked it different than any other place and it was really good!) and sat and visted with us for a long time. His family's house is up on a hill on the outskirts of town and you can see to the ocean and many parts of the city from the house. After we sat for awhile, we went on a walk around the area and we were able to see all they wantd to share with us. The day was full and we had to cut our visit short because Cami was throwing us a Good-Bye party that evening, which we ended up being really late to because of our visit to Kande's. It was a little stressful, but we eventually arrived. When we walked up to the house we could hear music and saw people everywhere dancing and singing. It was a big worship service. They had invited everyone we have been close to during our time here, so the house was packed. There were so many people that they were spilling out of the house. We walked in and the place felt electric with love and celebration. The Lighthouse kids were playing the drums, Foday was playing the guitar and Pastor Suliman (I know you don't know all these names, but they mean something to me) was leading worship. After worship, we ate and talked and danced the night away. It was one of the most beautiful evenings I have ever been a part of. The Lighthouse kids danced all night and played the drums. They even got us white folks to dance a couple dances....and let me just say I cannot move this body like an African can move theirs! :) I hope that I don't ever forget one moment of the evening!!!!!! So that was Sunday. Then yesterday we celebrated the December birthdays at Lighthouse. Cami brings in a cake and then the kids that have birthdays stand in the middle and we each go up to them one by one and tell them all that we love about them and encourage them. I told Cami that I am going to fly back once a month, just so that I can be a part of each month's celebration. These kids are amazing and so rich in beauty. I wish I could be here to tell each one how precious they are. So that was yesterday and that was GREAT! Then today we had our last prayer/worship time as a community. It was great, we read through Psalm 23....good stuff! The Lord is so good! Then Jeremy and I went into town and went to lunch with Sheku, one of the Lighthouse kids, for his birthday. It was so much fun to sit and visit with him and just to be able to celebrate him. He is such a sweet and tender heart. I wish you all could see his smile and watch him dance, it would make any heart come alive. I then spent the afternoon with our friends on the street. I just sat there watching all the people. I am really going to miss this place, even with all the noise and filth and sadness...I am going to leave so much of my heart here! Even now, I look out the window of the internet cafe and watch people walking and traffic flying by and I am overcome with joy to be here and sadness to be leaving. The people are amazing and they work so hard. Life is not easy in Salone and I admire their strength. This whole week is full of fun things and being with people I love. I am looking forward to the rest of it! Right now, I am off to have dinner with our team and Kristen and Sarah. They are two girls that we have become friends with from the U.S. that are here for a year with Children of the Nations...if you think about it pray forthem. Being away from your family on the holidays is not easy. It is so weird to think that Christmas is just two weeks away. It definitely does not feel like Christmas here. I am looking foward to warm sweaters and chilly nights and lots of Christmas tunes upon my return. As much as I am heart sick about leaving, I am excited about coming home and getting to see you all. It is such a tug-of-war in my heart. Well, I am off for now. Will try to write again later this week. Have a cup of hot chocolate for me and listen to a good Christmas CD!

beaches

. I have spent the past few days relaxing on the beach and processing some aspects of our time here. I feel like I just got back from a mini-vacation, it was lovely! The beaches here are so beautiful and every sunset/sunrise is like watching a masterpiece be worked right in front of your very eyes. The crystal blue waters, lush green palm trees, flowers of many colors and blue skies all around. The sound of the waves beating against the shore. It was a rhythm that my soul needed. I needed to feel the Lord like that and to hear Him. This retreat was a lot about how we have seen our time here and questions to be thinking about as we re-enter our lives back home. Home has seemed to far away for so long that it feels impossible to try to put myself back in that life. I have been asked many time lately how I am doing with the prospects of coming home. When asked this question, every emotion imaginable runs through my heart. I am looking forward to being HOME, to seeing my family and all of you that I love so dearly. But there are a lot of questions that are unanswered for me right now. I dearly love my friends here and I love living among and being among the poor. I have to figure out what that will look like at home. Also there is the impending decision about a job. That is not so exciting or inviting to come home to but I trust the Lord that it will work out. This retreat was really good for me because it made me think about howI have changed and then also think about all that has changed at home. There are some exciting thing that I am coming home to and some not to exciting things. I hope that I have grown and changed from my time here, so it will be a new experience to be home among the changes being the new me. I am coming off of these few days away with an excitement to end this last week well and enjoy the time here but also I am excited to take home what I have learned and who I have become. I just hope you all have patience with me as I figure out what all this means.

Ms. Whiny Pants

Wow, was my last entry whiny or what?! Good grief. Sorry about using the blog space to be little Ms. Whiny Pants. I thought I was being a little bit better of a trouper than that...yikes! So, quick health update and then onto new things. Still not at 100%. That cold I mentioned, turned into a sinus infection and double ear infection. This is actually a prayer request because I cannot hear out of my left ear very well. However, all in all, I am doing a little better each day. Still don't have an appetite but I cannot say that is the worst thing to loose :P Okay, enough about all that!

So, folks, two weeks from today (Lord willing) I will be setting foot on my native, Nebraska frozen soil. There are a flood of emotions that sweep over me when I think of home. Mostly they are the sadness and grief that I feel over leaving Freetown and the people that I have grown to love so deeply. One of the Lighthouse kids asked me if I ever honestly plan to come to see them again. That is such a hard question. Yes, I plan on saying coming back to visit, at the very least, but we never know what tomorrow holds. My heart tells me it is not good-bye forever, but I wonder if that is just a fool's hope! Other emotions are a little bit of fear of coming back and trying to reintegrate back into Western life. I am afraid of forgetting what I have grown to be passionate about here and the revelations the Lord has given me about the poor and living simply. Our culture is just so busy and hectic, it is so easy to loose sight of the important things. I am saying this from experience and I am not trying to bash our culture. We just have so many distractions from what matters. I do have to admit that I am looking forward to being home for Christmas (not the crazy consumer driven holiday hoopla but the cozy family centered time of the year centering on the most amazing thing that ever happened in our history!). And I am looking forward to being cold...not sure what that is like anymore! Those are just a few of the emotions that keep running through my heart. There are many more but my blog spot is not big enough for all of them and I am sure you don't have time to read about them all!!

We changed our plane tickets and so we will be staying in Freetown two more days instead of being stuck in London for 2 days. I am excited about this but it also is like post-poning an operation. It is good because the pain is put off for two more days but on the other hand you have two more days to think about how painful it is going to be. Well, that is how a pessimist would look at it, so it is a good thing that I am not a pessimist! :P I cannot imagine what life without Jesus would be like! I have such a peace and a hope in Him. I have no idea what I am going to do for a job, if I am supposed to live here or not, what my life at home should look like, even if my hearing will every fully come back but I just have a peace that I am in His hands. Is He not just the BEST! I am so overwhelmed with how amazing He is!!

Well, I am off. I will not post probably until next weekend or even next week sometime. We are off to a short little two day retreat and then we get back and hit the ground running. Will try to post when I can!