Reentry Ramblings

Missions trips are amazing. Truly. Life altering. I want to go back again and again and again. When I’m there, I do miss the comforts of home, but when I’m home…I want to be there.

Today, I was carrying on quite a cryptic and scattered, disorderly, somewhat chaotic conversation (at least in my own mind) with a friend of mine over lunch. I don’t know how to act, where to stand, or how to verbally communicate since I’ve been back. I cannot articulate to others what it is that I’m feeling. Unless someone has been there, its hard to say. And the words get caught up in a rollercoaster in my head and then when I try to let it out, its all jarbled.

I want desperately to talk about Rwanda. I have been able to articulate some in previous posts…But today I struggle a great deal with talking about it without feeling frustrated and judgmental of the complacency and sense of entitlement of this beautiful nation in which I was privileged to be born into. We see things on TV and in the news but are so insulated from the realities of the rest of the world. There’s nothing PERSONAL about it. There’s comfort here, in complacency, I realize. Its easy to get caught up in the rat race, too, and not have time to care for others. So much going on in our personal lives.

When I think about what I can do here, though, while I’m waiting for my next trip over there, its actually a bit more difficult to press out of the comfort zone into action. I contemplate all the areas of need here (not to mention the quandary of my own!) and there’s such a separation between our helping and the faces of those being helped. Unless we’re providing for the homeless, which has a certain amount of risk involved with it because of substance, we don’t always get to look into the eyes of those who do need the help. And it keeps us all separated and dislocated. And then we have to struggle to actually FIND community…

The question has been asked of me before I’ve gone to both Ethiopia and Rwanda, why do I have to spend so much money to go? Why don’t I just send the money? The first time someone meets those they are helping, eye to eye, and heart to heart with a hug of gratitude, you understand the reason. Resources are great and helpful, but when met with a heart attached and a face with a smile and a hug…it makes the help a thousand times greater than if they’d just had someone drop off a bucket of money.

I’m searching right now for peace in my heart. I feel guilty for thinking the awful things I do…but oh my goodness! Could we bring some FIRE into the picture here? PASSION?! People ask so often what is the meaning of life and what am I going to do with my life and we struggle and strive for things to bring us worth and fulfillment to our hearts and lives. The answer is to help! Step outside of ourselves and look into the eyes of someone who REALLY needs!

We are a country that prides itself on the things we do. I contribute to this charity or that charity. How many go to St. June Children’s hospital and hug a child? How many people stand in a food line helping to feed the faces of the homeless? How many people go to retirement homes or hospice facilities to make sure they aren’t lonely? We in the states are less without material things, but we are starving for relationship! For true, genuine, selfless eye to eye and heart to heart connection…

~Pause~

Its now tomorrow…and am contemplating further the unsettled nature of my ramblings. By viewing those around me and pointing at what I don’t see, I have to ask myself what in myself is lacking? What am *I* NOT doing? [Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Matt 7:3] Its easy to project the things we have a personal conscience about… and its occurred to me today…the knots that are all bound up inside of me are a projection and frustration of my own complacency here. What is it that I am going to do today? and tomorrow? that will make a difference in someone else’s life? And what will I do while I step one foot in front of the other, to be the hands and feet of Jesus walking with those that are so easily discarded? I will ask God daily…who may I serve, today? Its easy to point a finger at culture and at what we see going on in our neighborhood, our city, our state, our nation, swirling on, around us day to day that is just frustrating, but all it takes is one good samaritan to change the life of one person…but the ripple effect goes on and on and on. How wonderful that there really is more than one person out there making a difference. And I don’t have to SEE what that difference is to know that it is happening all around. Its easy to get sucked into the negative. But its also very easy to redirect back to the beauty that is in all things. And today, I’ve found some peace again. :)

Do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfet will. Romans 12:2

Decompression Ponderings…

As I stand in the shower this morning, just allowing the water to fall freely over me, without reservation or consciousness about it running out, I realize how I’ve taken for granted how easily it comes to me. Its piped in from somewhere…I’m not sure where…it is clean and unending. I could stand there for an hour or more if I wanted to.  It might turn cold, but it never runs out. Its warm; its lovely. I could drink it if I wanted to. I am clean. Every single day; sometimes twice a day. Part of me feels a bit gluttenous for just standing there, thinking about it, while it runs and runs and runs. Its helping to ease the discomfort in my being as I decompress from the trip, I rationalize.

As we were driving down the road yesterday, out of the blue my daughter tells me that she’d like to share her car seat – the one that is too small for her now – with some other kids; with the kids in Africa. Bless her sweet little heart…and thank the Lord that she’s learning the value of sharing with others very young. She has no idea that car seats don’t fit on bicycles or mopeds; and seat belts are not really utilized there. Buses and vans are usually stuffed silly with those trying to get from here to there. Its not about comfort and/or convenience or even safety, its about economy.

I never know how my lens will be changed…until I start doing something and I find myself trying to reconcile the contradictions.

As I throw in a load of laundry – that takes me about five minutes – I remember the loads and loads of laundry, washed and hung by hand, for the 600 + orphans at Noel Orphanage. As I throw my dirty dishes into the dishwasher, I think about the one dish, fork and cup that is washed in the same bucket the laundry is washed in…if at all…if there’s enough water left that was collected in the yellow gas can-like container, on a bike, by the children, up that really steep neverending hill (Rwanda is called the land of 1000 hills for good reason). As I stare blankly into my fridge and pantry that are overflowing with selection, I suddenly lose my appetite as I ponder the porridge’ish looking sustainance that is fed to the vast majority there, without regard to what tastes good or looks good or will satisfy taste bud at that moment. There are no preferences. Nourishment is nourishment; grateful to be had once or twice a day.  

As I pluck along on my computer keyboard, space heater running, bedroom and bathroom lights on; the breaker is thrown. I’ve over extended my electricity usage for the moment and am reminded of the mud huts that have no electricity and of the roaming power outages where those that are lucky enough to have electricity, have to share it. Life is lived in the daylight…because its when they can see.

As I renegotiate my cultural lens, I try really hard not to be frustrated at what we have and what they don’t because its just not fair; but maintain gratefulness that I was born into a land of plenty. Its the balance of seeing and knowing and living (even if briefly) both that I must focus on finding…

[Pictures courtesy of Erin K (bicycle) and Rebekah H (laundry)]