Guess Who's Back!

I’m always just a little bit apprehensive when returning to Africa. What can I say? It IS my home now, but every time we come back I worry that I’ll have changed my mind, that it will be a struggle. Always, always, always, once we’re here I feel like I’ve been here my whole life and I put leaving as far from my mind as if it didn’t exist. But that first week is sometimes filled with homesickness, frustration, and even fear. Fear of the unknown. Of what I can’t control.

I can feel it changing every time. It’s just a bit easier every year. Our first year, I sobbed every night for the first two weeks. Our second year, I was despondent (very privately, of course) for about a week. Last year, it took me a few days to get over the huge spiders all over the place and the unidentifiable gnats in my bed. This year, I’m enjoying being in Jo-burg, but I jumped for joy when my midwife and OB jointly approved us to go back to Zambia for about 5 weeks over the holidays! Never before has Zambia looked so sweet! And all because I was threatened with not being able to go back. With being forced to be in a first world city for awhile longer. With being in the near vicinity of shopping malls and coffee shops and overall conveniences. NOOOOOOOO! Please let me go back to Zambia! To my friends! To my own bed! To my tiny chalet with no washing machine!

Funny how things change….

Thank you, Lord. It’s through you that our thoughts are changed. That our minds are changed. That our whole lives are changed.