Joyful in Hope

The little fingers on my thigh startle me. I jump and bobble the items in my hand—a camera, a chitenge, a half-empty water bottle. She’s clawing at me in an almost desperate fashion. I turn expecting to see one of “mine.” I anticipate a familiar face, one that has probably buried itself in my shoulder after falling during a soccer game, or stared intently into my eyes as I clumsily tried to sew a tattered skirt back together.

I miss the African sun today. Perhaps it’s because the days are drawing shorter and colder, and the forecast seems to have burrowed into my soul. It has made my soul so very tired. There is something magical—Narnian, even—about the African sapphire sky. It dares you to believe in something. It whispers that it’s worth it. That they’re worth it.

I’ve never seen this little girl before, though. She is completely unfamiliar. She is absolutely filthy—enough so that I am a bit taken aback by it, because it’s Mutomboko, and everyone wears their best during this very important ceremony.

The sky is different in Nashville. Muted. Caged, somehow.  Not that it matters, really. My days simply do not contain even an ounce of spare time that could be used for staring into the sky. Even if I did, the city lights swallow the stars at night.

Her dress has stars on it. Or maybe just ragged and faded polka dots. She is so very small. She does not say a word. Later I wondered why. Usually the little ones will speak to me here, either babbling away in Bemba that I barely can follow or trying out the few English phrases that they know. But she just clings to me with a surprising amount of strength, hugging me over and over again, as if I am her best friend in the whole world and we have just been reunited after months apart.

This semester is different from any other I have ever had. I am taking Pediatrics and OB. The former I love; the latter is a little bit disgusting. Both are vitally important to healthcare in Africa. And after the toll that last fall took on my spiritual and mental well-being (because, ladies and gentleman, re-entering the Western world after three months in the bush is something akin to being bodily thrown into a sea of ice water just as you remember that you can’t swim), I knew I needed something to throw my energy and focus into this semester. I needed something to keep me grounded and motivated.

The man at the food stand advertising “Hygiene and Save Food! Sausages and Chips” is impatient with my little surprise distraction. My hands are instinctively embracing this little girl, but I turn the upper half of my body to face him and request an order. Nevermind the random preschooler wrapped around my body; mostly I’m just worried that I won’t be able to choke down the sausage. A particularly noxious bout of food poisoning secondary to sausage ingestion the first time I came to Zambia has made me nearly incapable of even being in the same room with the stuff.

So I lock myself in my room, and I study incessantly. I’ve thrown myself into school. These are tough classes. Peds is notorious for wrecking GPAs and decimating mental stability in senior nursing students at Belmont. Seems like a nice challenge, then. So I decided I would just get an A. That should keep me busy. Then the little voice in my head (maybe Peds is affecting me more than I thought…) wakes up one day and decides to try and convince me to go to grad school. “No, little voice,” I replied smartly. “No amount of cajoling and manipulation could convince me that subjecting myself to more time in a suffocating classroom would be a good idea.” The voice is very persistent though, and it stayed up ridiculously late one night researching its options. Turns out the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has a program that the voice knew I would instantly fall in love with. Of course, to qualify for entrance into their MSc in Infectious Disease program, I have to get a perfect 4.0 this semester. So much for ever sleeping, relaxing, or eating in the next two months…

A woman stumbles out of the crowd laughing. She is missing a few teeth, and I think she is drunk. “Musungu, feed my baby! Oh, I cannot feed her!” Her smirk angers me as I look into the pleading eyes of the little girl. I realize this woman has sent her to me to beg—perhaps promising that if she hugs the white girl, she will get to eat dinner? The child’s knees buckle a little, and the full weight of her little body presses into me. I notice the woman is holding a Mosi beer in her right hand.

But then I think of all the things that would stand between here and there. Entrance exams. College debt. Finding a job. Figuring out where to live after graduation (some days I just want to throw a dart at the globe). The application for the school is straight up ridiculous. I will struggle to find an academic reference—not because I haven’t done well, but precisely because I have. I never needed to go to any of my professors for help outside of class, and I never really thought to deliberately build a relationship with them in any other context. Looking over what they want for a reference, I honestly don’t know if any professor on this campus knows me well enough to write it. Few of them know my name.

I am unbelievably hungry. We left the orphanage really early that morning and have walked in the sun for much of the day. It is now well past noon. The man hands me my lunch—a small bag of French fries, and a sausage wrapped in paper. I break off the top third of the sausage and hand it to the little girl, hovering over her while she stuffs the whole thing in her mouth. I’m afraid if I leave her to eat it unprotected, the mother will take it. I’ve seen that happen before. The mother and several others who are now watching laugh raucously at me, as though I’ve been suckered into something and have no idea that they have “tricked” me. But I didn’t do it because the mother asked. I did it for the little girl. I did it because she was hungry and unable at that age to get food for herself, and I had food. What other reason could I possibly need?

I don’t know if I really want to do grad school anyway. Some days I do. Other days I don’t at all, or maybe I just get so overwhelmed with everything that the next year will hold for me (and those closest to me) that I cannot imagine adding to that plate.

The little girl stands and watches me walk away as we shoulder through the crowd of hundreds of Zambians to seek shelter under the awning of Aunt Josie’s building. My suspicions soon prove true: I cannot eat the sausage. I took one bite and dry heaved. I instantly regret not giving her the whole thing, but I know I would have been swarmed by dozens of other kids wanting something too. I’m surprised I wasn’t anyway. It wasn’t a problem that I normally had to deal with in the village center or around my neighborhood anymore, because I knew enough kids on a personal level to keep it from happening. There was usually some kid who knew me who could keep the others in line. Mutomboko attracts people from all over the area though, and I’ve barely seen a friendly face all morning. David trades me the rest of his fries for my sausage stub. I tell him about the little girl. I know as I am telling him that he would have fed her too, and I am thankful for that.

We talk about it all over dinner—about writing theses, Honors classes, GPAs, GREs, test scores, hopes, fears… We reminisce a little, and we talk about the kids we left behind there. Some of them are easy to keep up with—I can always check in on the kids inside the orphanage. The others could all swim the river and set up permanent camp in the Congo tomorrow, and we would never know what happened to them.  Mostly we talk about the right-now or the future though. We proofread and brainstorm and type like maniacs, slowly chipping away at the iceberg of assignments that is this semester. Mostly I am hopeful, and so I cling to that reminder to be “joyful in hope.”  I whisper a prayer as I flip through another stack of study note cards—a prayer for protection, grace and mercy for them all, but especially a prayer of thanks, because we will all fall asleep under the same sky tonight, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.

And somehow that knowledge makes them seem just a little bit closer. Somehow, for right now, that makes them just close enough.

His Gift

I don't really remember the first time I met Gift. At some point, he just started showing up to play ball.  With the timing of evening activities I didn't make it out every night, and it took me longer than David to get everyone's names down.

I do, however, remember the first time I noticed him.  As we would scramble and fight for the ball, tiny little kids would make their way to the front steps of the orphanage.  Some of them wanted to play but were just too small.  Others were too sick.  Still others were just there to watch. Two- and three-year-olds would show up with babies who could barely walk strapped to their backs or tottering behind. 

A side note about Africa-- life is just harsher here. I don't think anything of tiny little kids wandering around by themselves.  The fence to the village clinic has 10 foot gaping holes interspersed periodically around its perimeter through which the area farm animals can conveniently enter.  There's a bare mattress on a bed frame in the delivery room, but you have to step over a pile of goat droppings to get to it.  On of the boys who played soccer with us each night was covered, head and torso, in ringworm, and he hugged me goodbye the same way everyone else did.  It's not that I don't recognize the sadness or comical oddity of some of these situations; it's just that in the midst of them, when I'm surrounded by them, I'm not really fazed by them. You just handle it and move on. 

So anyway...

The first time I noticed Gift was when Kunda and Musonda were scrapping over the ball. Kunda kicked it with so much force that I'm pretty sure it broke the sound barrier. It sailed straight past the players and bowled little Eunice Mwense, age 3, right off of the stairs. It hit her in the head. Hard. And then she landed on her head. Hard.

Gift got there before I did. He scooped her up and sat on the porch with her, running his fingers across the back of her head. She had thick matted hair, tinged orange with the characteristic protein deficiency of Kwashiorkors. He tenderly worked his fingers through it, talking and singing gently the whole while and looking her over repeatedly. She seemed to be okay. She sported an impressive goose egg, but she was going to be fine.  I reached down to take her, and Gift looked up at me. Then he took my hand and placed it on Eunice's legs.  They were crusted and scabbed with the sores that come from malnutrition and a dirty living environment. He didn't say anything. He just looked at me.

And he knew that I knew, and so now he knew that I couldn't just do nothing.

But I'll tell Eunice's story later.  This is BaGifti's story.

David and I remarked to each other on several occasions that Gift would be a great dad someday.  Sometimes he would get bored with the game and would go heckle the little kids.  He would lead them in chants and cheers, gesturing for them to scream louder and dancing with them on the steps.  All of the post-game dance parties were his brainchild.

David and Gifti after a realllllly long sudden death match.

That's really no surprise though, because Gift's eyes are always dancing.  His laugh is infectious, and he rarely takes anything seriously if he can avoid it.  Right before Mutomboko, it became very difficult to play in the street because so many "important" people kept rolling by in their vehicles.  This is another example of Africa's ability to confer a casualness upon circumstances that would make the average American soccer mom's hair curls. Allan (who happens to be Gift's cousin) darted across the road to get the ball just as the Ministry of Edcation (yes, that's how they spelled it... ha!) truck, packed full of proud and stuffy administrators, was chugging slowly down the middle of our field... I mean, the road.  Allan was a good 25 feet in front of the vehicle.  I didn't think a thing of it.  Neither did the driver of the truck at first, but 20 yards down the road he changed his mind and tried to reverse. After zigzagging across the entire road a few times he managed to make it back to where we were. He shook his finger sternly at Allan and began angrily shouting, over and over again, "That is bad manners! Very bad manners!" Allan was bewildered.

But Gift came to the rescue. He side-stepped in front of Allan and began mock-pleading with the man behind the wheel for forgiveness. He's quite the actor, and if I didn't know Gift better than that then I might have believed the performance. The man kept yelling about manners. Gift fell to his knees with his hands clasped in front of him, "Ah, yes! We are just poor rude village kids. Thank you so much for your kindness and your teaching! We will always have good manners now! Sorry, sorry, so sorry!" I faked a sneeze to hide a snort of laughter. The man in the car nodded to signify appeasement and then chugged away. Gift winked at me and said, "Those kind, they are all the same." Then he flashed that smile of his, motioned for the little ones to cheer him on, stole the ball, and bolted for the opposite goal.

Gift will make his way into many more of my stories and in fact may have more than one future post dedicated to his antics. He traveled with us to Lusaka when we were on our way home, and I could write a whole book about that. For now, though, these few anecdotes will have to do.

I have to say-- I miss this kid.

Like a Child

I wrote this well over 2 years ago and posted it as a facebook note. It's a story I think of often, especially when I get caught up in the details of man's attempts to explain that which is beyond his comprehension. Also, I miss this little girl like none other, because even though she's only 45 minutes away, school and work suck up every available moment of time I have. It's been several months since we've played together. She's a real gem. Let me show you...

I am writing this in my bed. The dog is asleep on the floor beside me, snoring softly and twitching as she chases some imaginary creature through her dreams. My four-year-old cousin Allie is curled up by my side clutching my bear, Gustav von Teddy. In her other hand is a children's story Bible.

I treasure my time with Allie so much, but I was reminded tonight just how valuable the innocent heart of a child is. The stories she chose to read tonight were about Jesus's birth and the angels telling the shepherds. I never for a second thought when I picked up that book that I would learn something by reading it, but God has a sense of humor (and a way of humbling us when we need it).

True to her 4-year-old nature, she asks a TON of questions.

"What is sin?" (Have you ever tried to explain that to a kid? It's not as easy as it sounds.) Well, sin is when we do something we're not supposed to do. "How come Jesus died? Is he still dead?" He came as a baby, grew up, and then died on a cross for us.... Do you know what a cross is? (She made a cross with her fingers...) "It's like X-men!" ......Sort of. They made a cross shape out of big pieces of wood and then hung Jesus on it to die. But He didn't stay dead! He came back to life three days later! "How could he do that?" Because He was God's son. He was God. That made Him strong enough to beat sin and death (insert blank stare here). 

You know how when you do something wrong at home you get punished? Well, when we do bad things that God doesn't like, we should get punished for it. But Jesus loves us so much that He came and took our punishment for us. "So if he died on the cross then that means we don't have to be on a cross? I don't want you to be on a cross Meghan." (insert breaking heart here as this precious little girl begins to sob.) No sweetheart, Jesus took the punishment for us. "But what if there is another cross someday?" There never, ever has to be another cross. Jesus beat sin. "Oh wow, he won!" Yes monkey. He won. "So if Jesus already took our punishment then does that mean that God doesn't care if we do bad stuff at home?" No, God still wants us to do good things. It just means that if we do bad things and we ask Him to forgive us then He will... Do you understand what forgiveness is?.... Forgiveness is when someone does something mean or bad to you but you decide to not do anything mean back and not to be mad at them.  So if we do something bad and we're sorry for it, we can ask God to forgive us and He will. He won't be mad at us. (Again, freakishly difficult to explain...) "When Austin hits me, I always just hit him back!" (Apparently I'm not getting through...) But that's not what Jesus would want you to do. When He was on the way to the cross, lots of people hit Him and spit on Him and said really mean things to Him. But He didn't hit or yell back.  He just kept going to the cross because He wanted everyone to be able to be forgiven by God, even those people that were hurting Him. "But if Jesus is in heaven with God now then how will anyone ever know him?" If you ask Him to, His Spirit comes to live in your heart. And He gave us the Bible so we could read about Him and learn. You can tell people about Him just like I'm telling you! "Meghan, I'm glad that Jesus won." Me too, sweetheart. 

There is an interesting parallel between Allie and I. Both of us have heard these stories over and over again. Both of us need to be reminded over and over again. She forgets the details of the story; I forget the ending. He won. There never has to be another cross.  I am struck by the selflessness of her love, by her fear that I might have to bear a cross. And I realize, through my theologically shaky explanations of forgiveness and salvation, that I don't really fully understand them myself. I'm still learning too.



"Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

Marked

People have a way of marking you. Little people—tiny little newborn people, especially—are particularly adept at it. They mark you in a way that you may or may not realize. Sometimes they create a memory so powerful that you can vividly replay it in your mind for the rest of your life. Other times you may not even realize they marked you at all, or at least you don’t realize that you were marked by that particular instant.

I attended my first OB clinical last week. I held tiny little babies, less than an hour old. I watched a father hold his newborn daughter for the first time, and as the tears rolled freely off of his face, his three-year-old son reached up to pat his new sister on the head, whispering, “Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”

Marked.

The littlest baby by the door kept crying. It’s not a bad thing for a newborn to do. Screaming helps the lungs develop and can help clear a gunky airway. So it’s not a bad thing. But I’ll never be good at the “cry it out” method. So I put on a pair of gloves. His arms were waving around wildly. I slipped a finger into his hand, and he clung to it. His little fingers couldn’t even wrap all the way around it. Another finger caressed his cheek, and he rooted toward it. I stroked the roof of his mouth, and he latched on. Then he was quiet. So comfortably, peacefully quiet.

Marked.

It’s been a while since I’ve held a baby that small. Nearly 14 months. I thought about Jessie a lot that day. I thought about her when a nurse’s response to my question of what can be done to reduce risk of infection when a likely HIV, HSV, or HPV positive mother gives birth in an area where detection or treatment of those disorders is limited was a clipped and cold, “Don’t bother. Move on to someone you can help.”  I thought about her when that baby took my finger. I thought about her when that dad looked at his daughter and tried to wrap his mortal mind around the weight of beauty in his arms. I thought about her every single time a baby cried. I thought about her when one of those newborns scratched me with his little claws, because I had forgotten about Jessie’s fingernails, and about how cutting them was so unbelievably nerve-wracking.

I didn’t know that I had been marked by that. By little baby fingernails.

Sometimes even plastic little people can mark you.  In lab the other day, one of the baby mannequins had on a hat. Just a generic little hospital baby hat.


But I’ve seen that hat before.


So I stood there, frozen, in the middle of a lab class surrounded by my classmates, unable to move or catch my breath or even see clearly, because I have been marked by a little pink and blue knit cotton hat.

OB is a foreign land to me. On the normal med-surg postpartum floor that I was on, no one was sick. There were few if any complications. It’s not an area of nursing that I’m attracted to—not that I want people to be sick, just that I recognize that people will be. I want to be there to help when they are. I was so very thankful that the babies I worked with that day didn’t have a myriad of tubes and wires running off of them. I was thankful that they didn’t have IVs running into their fragile little veins, threatening to burst them. Because I’ve been marked by that too.



I think Marked is a good thing.  It could be bad, I suppose—if one let it be a distraction rather than a motivation; a token of fear instead of the foundation of courage; a definition when it should be a memory and quiet reminder.  But Marked can be good. Marked reminds you what you’re fighting for. It demands and allows more determined passion than you originally thought possible. It is both a symptom and a catalyst of love, both a cursed and blessed ability of the human spirit.

I have been marked.


I pray you are too.
 

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.