Overflow

I started unpacking today. There’s a sense of finality to it, but also the same kind of nascent hope that comes with the Spring—the changing of a season and another beginning. I am not in Africa anymore. I am in Nashville. I am here, at Belmont University, in this beautiful city, a full week into my senior year. I’m a wee bit closer to mastering the art of loving two places but only being able to physically be present in one. Ichitenge (large pieces of African fabric) hang like tapestries over my sterile dorm room walls. Pictures of my kids decorate the outside of my door, arranged around a note card that gives my reason: “Because I believe in a free Narnia.” My nights are filled with coffee shops and long walks and emergency trips to Kroger to get mozzarella sticks and ice cream, because I’m a girl and sometimes I crave them. Both of them. At the same time.  I chat with Jasmine or Troy or Zeger on facebook and flip through photos that I forgot I had taken while David fields phone calls from the village kids who just keep calling to say hi. Then we curl up and watch Hulu while the face of the Mwata stares down at us from the ichitenge that hangs on his wall, and I cannot help but smile, because my two words seem to be colliding in a beautiful dance that I don’t quite understand.

Surely my cup overflows.

I’m an RA in Kennedy again this year. Twenty-three girls call my floor home. I don’t know them very well yet, but sometimes really late at night, when I can’t sleep because my body is still relatively convinced that I’m still on the other side of the planet, I walk up and down the hall. I read their nametags and try to put a face to them, and I pray for each one of them. My thoughts drift to other girls who have come into my life under similar circumstances.  Some of my residents from last year are now my dearest friends. My sophomore year, I worked with University Ministries in a girl’s dorm. Some of those girls later became my residents in Kennedy. Others came in and out of my life as they needed me. I was there through judicial sanctions, the passing of grandparents, changes of major, cheating boyfriends, anaphylaxis, and just about every other conceivable catastrophe that could possibly happen on a college campus. I prayed for them too. I still do. All of those girls are juniors now, and so many of them have grown so much. I cannot describe the privilege it has been to watch them come into a deeper understanding of who Christ is and how much He loves them. Reconnecting with them in the past two weeks-- praying for them, guiding them, loving them-- has been pure joy, and I thank my sweet Savior for whatever small role I was allowed to play in their journeys of redemption. They are beautiful.

Surely my cup overflows.

Today I met with a professor that I first connected with last Spring. We talked about the future—about the possibility of grad school, about what the needs of the Kazembe community are and who might be able to help. People like her—people who believe that life can become better for these people but recognize that it may not be fully realized in their lifetime or mine, and yet still believe anyway—fill my soul with hope. It’s hard to find that balance between optimism and realism, and many people either never try in the first place or give it everything they’ve got before sinking into pessimistic despair. I think she believes I’ll make it. I think I needed to hear that.

Surely, truly, my cup overflows.

I found something in that first bag I unpacked today. It’s a tired looking little popsicle stick, partially wrapped in masking tape, ribbon, and yarn. I haven’t the faintest idea what it’s supposed to be. Johnny gave it to me the day that we left. “This is so you can keep it forever,” he said seriously, gazing at me sternly from beneath raised eyebrows.  I pocketed it and haven’t thought about it since. As I turned it over in my hands today, I found a dirty little fingerprint on the back.  I think he left one on my heart too.

This is my overflow.

Teem-o-tee

He is three years old. His name is Timothy (or as his sister Agnes says, “Teem-o-tee”), and he lives down the road.  I love him dearly.  He doesn’t run up to me the way some of the other village kids do.  He’s not very talkative.  But if I sit still for more than 5 seconds on the front porch, he crawls up in my lap and buries himself in my chest. His little head settles into the hollow below my collarbone.  I tuck my face down by his and hum softly, and the vibration seems to soothe him.  He wraps one arm around my shoulder and tangles his fingers in my hair. I wear it down for him, so he can play with it.  His other arm finds a secure hold around my waist.  His little nervous fingers work constantly, scratching at the back of my shirt as if to assure himself that I am still there.
 

His forehead bears a pear-shaped mark—maybe a birthmark, maybe a scar; I’m not sure.  Agnes reacts in sheer delight when I pick him up.  Her trilling laughter rings out across the harsh landscape like a tiny bell.  I wonder what she’s thinking. I wonder if anyone ever held her the way I’m holding him.  I wonder where they sleep at night—Agnes, Timothy, and their brother Vincent.  I wonder what will happen to them, and who will protect them, and I wonder if they know that I love them, or if I’m still mostly just the musungu novelty.  But no one has called me musungu in a really long time.  They call me Meghani.  Teem-o-tee calls me Meghani.
 

This night there are more kids around than usual.  Zeger’s parents are passing through, and the appearance of more outsiders has drawn an adoring crowd of elementary school kids. Teem-o-tee wraps his arms around my thigh and smothers his face into my leg. I absentmindedly run my hand across his head—and stop short. There are several large raised spots on his scalp, each the diameter of a golf ball. I place a little pressure on one, and it bursts. Blood and pus pour out. I can’t think. I can’t consider. I just react. A million thoughts rush through my suddenly mechanical mind as I dart to my room to grab my first aid kit. Could be staph, could be boils, probably needs an antibiotic… I return with my personal first aid kit. It takes several alcohol swabs to open the boils and wipe away the drainage. I know it hurts. His whole body is shaking, but he just stands there. Not a sound. Not a whimper. A single tear. Agnes holds his shoulder with one hand and my elbow with another. I’m not sure how to read her face, but I think she trusts me.  The last spot is stubborn. As I try to clean it out, a quarter-sized piece of dead flesh sloughs off into my hand. That image would replay in my mind for weeks.
 

Finally, it’s done. I slather a thick layer of triple antibiotic ointment on. Someone had sent me with a couple hundred little sample-sized single use packets of the stuff, so I send a handful of those and of alcohol swabs home with Agnes. I try to explain to her how to care for him, and my heart breaks. She’s just a kid. Nine years old, maybe? Perhaps a bit older?  Just a kid. She listens and nods, but her brow furrows together. Normally she would just say “yes” to everything she doesn’t understand, because that’s what they’re taught to do in school here. I think she’s scared, though. She looks scared.
Gideon, one of the older boys that was playing soccer, must have seen part of what happened. He comes over and says he will take her home. I’m partially afraid he’ll pocket the medicine, but I have to trust him to do the right thing. I watch them walk all the way back to her house. Agnes is holding the medicine. He doesn’t try to take it from her. When they get there, an older woman meets him in the yard. I see him gesture to Teem-o-tee, and they talk for a minute. Then he comes back up the road and joins in the game as if he had never left.

**********************
I’m a long way from Teem-o-tee now. I thought about him this morning as I sat down on the hard concrete steps in front of the nursing building. I think I half expected him to make his way into my lap. I wonder if his wounds healed. I wonder if they’ll get worse. And if they do get worse, I wonder… and I fear…
 

It is remarkable and fascinating how isolated their world is. In the States, tragic illnesses can make the evening news.  The nature of a technological society is that family circles become extended. You can watch your cousins on the other side of the continent grow up via facebook. You can travel to see them over Christmas, because we have airplanes and the money to use them. If a child dies here, they are mourned—or at least pitied—by so very many people. Not in all cases… but most. But there, in the bush… if a child dies, the family will probably mourn. Sometimes the families are so intermarried and massive that it seems like the whole village mourns. But that’s all. On the outside, no one knows. No one cares. It’s as if that kid never existed. Life can just… slip away…

Some days, I think that’s why I tell their stories. Life should matter more than that. Every life. Every life should be treasured. Every child should be fought for. Every kid should be loved. And is much as every lost life should be mourned, so too every living life should be celebrated. That’s what this post is about. This is a celebration of Teem-o-tee.

Let us celebrate his smile.
Let us celebrate his courage.
Let us celebrate his innocence.
Let us celebrate, and let us pray that as his beautiful little eyelashes flutter open in the morning, a daybreak breeze will envelop him in a hug to let him know that he’s not forgotten.
He is celebrated.

The In-Between

Much has transpired since my last post. Many soul-wrenching goodbyes were exchanged; many spirit-filling laughs were shared; many heart-issues were either emboldened or laid to rest in my own life. Those stories will come, with time, as I am able to tell them, for to commit them to paper is to consent to sharing them, and some memories-- some thoughts-- seem too fragile and precious to share. Maybe time will strengthen them, or maybe I will simply treasure them up in my heart. Suffice it to say that things have a curious way of working out in the end, and that the tears of goodbye are made sweet by the promise of reunion. God willing, we will walk those winding village roads again. We certainly intend to.


The last few weeks in Kazembe were… an adventure, to say the least.  Without some seriously sick babies to distract me this summer, I was left with an excess of time to study, reflect, and react. Circumstances both pushed and pulled me out into the beautiful community surrounding the orphanage.  I was able not only to spend time pouring into those six precious first graders that have claimed so much of my affection but also to venture out onto those dusty dirt roads that the rest of Kazembe calls home—and then, I was privileged beyond compare to watch those two worlds begin to collide. The day I left, I told Johnny it was time for me to go home. “That’s okay Auntie Meghan. But will you be back by tonight? Because I want to play with the kids outside.”

Tears flowed unchecked, running off my cheeks and dripping onto the thirsty earth. I know, sweetheart. I can’t come back tonight. I’m so sorry… And I gasp in deep breaths of the African Narnian air, as if filling my lungs with it might somehow keep a part of it with me, or a part of me there… I don’t know how to say goodbye. I’m not sure which is worse—the kids who cry, because they know that goodbye can be for such a long time, or the ones who are too young or to calloused to show emotion at the departure. So I just hug them all in turn. And one of the nannies says, “Auntie Meghan, Maike is calling for you.” And I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can pick up another baby, another tiny baby boy, and tell him goodbye. Because when I fall in love with a kid, I fall all in. I love them like they’re mine. I love them with everything I’ve got. David says I mother everything I touch. I don’t know what to do with that love. But I scoop up baby Michael, and I hug him so tight that he squirms in protest, and I sit in the corner with him and tell him that he is wanted.  I tell him that his family couldn’t be there for him, and I don’t know why. Some of them died, and some of them just couldn’t, or wouldn’t. But he is wanted. And loved. And a treasure.  And I will pray for him often. It will be easy, because his face will be in my dreams. I know that. I always dream about them. The nannies just watch, and I wonder what they’re thinking. I wonder what they think about the emotional white girl whose tears are dripping all over these kids. Majory promises me she will watch out for him.  Peter leans against the wall and watches it all. He is expressionless. I go to shake his hand goodbye. He takes my hand and envelopes it in both of his.  He holds on a little firmer and a little longer than normal. “You will not forget us.” It is not a question.

And then it’s time to go. I round the corner of the main house to see half a dozen guys standing at the front gate. They’re the kids we play soccer with at night. I remember our fractured goodbye of the night before—standing there as the sun retreated over the rim of the valley and feeling my entire soul wince and recoil as that farewell was cut short.  None of them are smiling now. David speaks with them for a moment and then comes back cradling a photograph in his hands as though it is the most precious thing he has ever held. It’s a picture of Albert and Nicholas standing in front of the statue of the Mwata in the Boma. I know how highly coveted photographs are here, especially among the children. I know the value of what they have given us. He packs it carefully into a bag, and we walk towards the gate. Peter is waiting for us. “These kids,” he says, gesturing at the soccer boys, “they will wait for you. They will still be waiting when you come back to us.” David keeps walking. I look at the boys again. It’s as if they’re escorting us to a funeral, rather than a bus. David gets out the door ahead of me, and the boys take off with him. I watch them walk down that dusty road together, fifteen yards ahead of me, shoulder to shoulder as if they are best friends and brothers.

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Ah, sweet Lucy. I think we would have been dear friends. Though I feel that it’s a bit of both things for me. I shall indeed miss Narnia. In so many ways, it is Narnia, because that is where He called me, and that is where I promised to follow him, and one doesn't break a promise to Aslan. But I know that Aslan is everywhere. I have called on him by many names and in many places, and I have certainly known him better by knowing Him in Narnia. But just as surely as He called me through the wardrobe, so too has He called me back for a time of preparation and learning.  

He brought me to this place—to this forsaken little village, where the things of eternity hang so heavily in the air that every joyful breath brings with it a hallelujah…

and he has taken me home again...

and He will bring me back…

and He will sustain me in the in-between.