At the Feet of Glory

Tommy is one of my favorite people on the planet. He has this wonderful, dry, Polish sense of humor that hides deep in the gleam in his eye. I met him the first time two summers ago; he and his wife Lydia (who, incidentally, is also one of my favorite people) live in Lusaka and are friends of Amy, so Timmy and I stayed with them before getting on the bus to Kazembe the next morning.

This summer, he was watching over the orphanage the first few days that we were there while Amy and Tom were away. Tommy seems to have a sense of adventure that I really appreciated. A couple of days after we got there, he took us all to the waterfalls nearby—not the little ones we went to last year, but the massive, awe-inspiring, bring-you-to-your-knees waterfalls a bit further away.

And we took the 1st Graders with us.

Like I said. Tommy is adventurous.

It was a long, bumpy ride, and by the time we got there I was on the verge of motion sickness. We really were in the middle of nowhere-- even more so than where we were in the village. Before the car had even stopped, we could hear the dull roar of sheer power.

Words fall woefully short. I have never seen anything that compares. Pictures do not even begin to do this place justice. Even while we were there, I struggled to describe what I was seeing-- Majesty. Power. Awesome (in the truest sense of the word). Glory.

Kazembe was at the beginning of their dry season, and even the few tufts of vegetation still stubbornly refusing to turn brown were coated in a fine, dry, rust-colored dust. The world revolved in shades of faded brown and gray.

But here-- at Lumangwe-- the water cascaded over and through sheets of stone, compelling even the most inhospitable landscape to produce a lush paradise. It's one of those places that Disney tells you is real, but your heart never quite believes that it is real for you... if that makes any sense...

We laughed; we played; we splashed. We crept down rocky steps hewn into the crags of the cliff to reach the bottom of the falls, and then we swam and climbed and jumped and wracked our all-too-limited vocabularies for words to describe it all. I think the entire force of the world was behind that water. Then we splashed around in wading pools at the top of the falls. Theresa claimed David as her own and followed him around like a little shadow. Queenie dominated a water war against the boys. That girl makes me proud.

Chola was so brave, and so awestruck. "Auntie Meghan...!" he exclaimed softly, his young voice carrying with it an air of belief and faith in Magic and Majesty that those of us who have let our souls grow up sometimes must grasp for. "Auntie Meghan...! God! God has made this!" Yes baby. He certainly did.

The kids knew it was real right away, you see.

It takes old souls just a little bit longer,

But after an hour or so of wandering around, eyes wide, drenched in the mist of a dozen waterfalls and squinting through the haze that rises from thunder, the icy, honey sweet water running in ribbons off of your face and dripping from hair and clothing, you find yourself somewhere between believing it is real and awestruck that such beauty exists this side of eternity.



I needed the reminder, I think. It had been a long five days of travel, punctuated by frustrating and exhausting overnights in hostels and hostels and cramped bus seats. I was so tired. We were all tired. I had slipped into that all-too-easy mistake of focusing on the physical and quantifying my success by what I could or could not accomplish over the next two and a half months. That can eat you alive. Believe it or not, my arms cannot hold all of the children of Africa, though I am sure they would try if it was asked of them. But if ever my goal becomes merely physical-- if ever my war becomes against death and poverty-- then I fear that I have already lost. I momentarily lost track of that. I lost track of Him.

Because standing there, bracing myself against the force of wind and billowing mist, suddenly acutely aware of my own fragility as my feet slipped a little on the algae-covered-dripping-wet slate I was perched upon, I welcomed my own insignificance.

It was so simple, and yet so complex-- but, as David says, somehow completely different than the complexity we wrap around ourselves.

And so I needed the reminder. 

I needed to feel powerless not because of overwhelming need around me, but because of standing in the presence of unfathomable power and indescribable beauty.





I needed to stand at the feet of Glory.