Back to America

September 9th, 2014

I’m writing this from the airport, waiting for the first of a 3 planes to take me back to America. I’m so excited to be going back, to see family and friends again, to see and hug all the people I haven’t been able to talk with face-to-face in 7 months. At the same time, I’m leaving with the feeling of wanting to be able to teleport back to Africa whenever I want, to go to the market, practice French, visit people or check how patients at the clinic are doing. 

In some ways, I feel like it is time to leave, and like I have reached a place where I have done what I came to do. I am confident and believe so much in the people who are going to continue teaching and helping with the nutrition education program, and with the Moringa project. I believe it’s going into capable hands, to people who care deeply about the ones they serve, people who inspire me with their faith and love for Jesus.

The last month of being here I spent putting together a nutrition book. It is basically a plan of how to identify people who are malnourished or really needing nutrition help, and then how to carry out the actions needed to address those issues. The book also includes an index with many different health problems, along with instructions and education sheets about nutrition can help. Now, the clinic workers will be able to have that as a guide and teach others. It feels good to be able to leave them with that.

Creating education materials! The little girl across from me is
Mimi. She is the daughter of Fatou, a woman who works at the
clinic. Mimi usually came to work with her mom and would hang
out with me and Grandmom as we worked.

 

Grandmom, Mimi, and me.

On the other hand, it’s hard to leave the people that I have become so used to seeing every day. As the days got closer to when it was time for me to leave, I realized more and more how much I would miss everything here. Especially not knowing the next time I will see all these people again – my church family, the ladies I always buy fruit from at the market, the people who work at the clinic, the regular patients who have become friends. The relationships that I have with these people are so special to me.


Koniba (all better now!) and his grandmother, who takes care of
him and his 2 sisters. A family very close to my heart.

Thinking about this journey and looking back, I am just thankful, for so many things.

I’m thankful for all the people have supported me, encouraged me, and prayed with and for me. For the friends and brothers and sisters in Christ who I have met along the way. For all of the people who have no idea how they have blessed my life and how much they mean to me. I'm thankful to even have this opportunity in the first place, to come here and learn and serve. It has been an adventure, one where even the simple things in life are difficult but which makes the little joys and victories so much more meaningful. And being able to know the joy from these things is something that I would never trade.

I’m thankful that the time here that allowed me to be able to know people personally and develop relationships with them. The people here who have welcomed me so willingly into their lives and homes, who have taught me and laughed with me. Familiar faces and personalities that I have come to know and love. These are real people with real stories, who if you would meet them too you would know that they are they aren’t so much “poor people who I am helping” as people who teach and are a blessing to me. People who are strong, hard-working, and caring.  Who have their own personalities, hopes and dreams just like people everywhere.

Yes, in many ways things are different than in America, but a lot of it is because people here just value different things, and life here is based around those values. For example, people here could care less if clothes match, or if toys are made out of old bike tires and tin cans. Things that don’t last just aren’t so important. People don’t need anything more than a little cement house with one or 2 small rooms, because they spend all of their time outside in the courtyard anyway. Cooking, washing, playing, talking, and being in community with each other. Values and life are based around getting along with each other, helping people who need help, visiting people who are sick. They have an understanding that people are what matters.

Included in these people who I cannot thank enough for everything they have done for me and made my time here so special, are the missionaries…Andy and Stephanie Gable and their 5 kids. As basically the only other white people in town, and the only other Americans, I really don’t know what I would have done without them. They’re the ones who have built their lives here, and have helped me understand the culture and community here works. They’ve shared stories of their experiences here and been such an encouragement to me in so many ways. The kids always left me flowers and notes on my door, Andy would take time from all the work he does to help me with questions that I had. Stephanie would me her expertise on sewing projects, and for their weekly pizza night I always got to make a side with all different varieties of vegetables. (To my fellow pizza hut workers who know my love of topping pizzas with veggies galore, ...some things just never change). As another side note, it’s a little sad to think of how less colorful/green their pizza nights will be now.

 

The pizza crew!

Anyways, onwards. I’m thankful for the opportunity and challenge of learning French, and even some Jula.  For being able to have a basic conversation in a language not my own. Other simple things, like recognizing someone I know as I’m walking around town, and stopping to talk or say hi.

Buying mangos on the side of the road.

I’ll miss the market with all its business and people and crowded narrow stalls, even the smell of raw meat and seeing who knows what animal parts laying out on display. There’s something that it is just so appalling about it that it makes me love it even more.

 

 

Also, buying all the exotic fruits and trying new things and making friends with all women selling things.  Every trip to the market was an adventure.

 

All other things too…visiting people, teaching English, playing with the missionary kids next door. The more things I think about, the more grateful I am to have so many things and people I am going to miss.

Mama Shoke, and some of the kids that she has adopted into
her family after they were left with no one to take care of them.
 Possibly the most joyful ladys I know in the entire world.

And in the middle of all of this bittersweet thankfulness, I find Jesus. I don’t even know what to say to people who think that anything I have done is special, because if they actually saw me here and knew how much I didn't/don’t know, how clueless and lost I often felt, they would know without a doubt that anything that went RIGHT was only because of the grace of God. I really can’t take any credit.

I can’t know the love that Jesus has for me and not want to lose my life serving Him. I feel alive and like I am doing what I was created to do when I live knowing I am loved my Him and that nothing else matters more. The kind of love where I don’t care if I make a fool out of myself because I know that nothing I do for Jesus will ever be wasted. So all the French I’ve butchered, the mistakes I made, the times I don’t understand what’s going on and I feel so different and misunderstood, like I can’t express what I really want to say... I always want to be thankful even when I feel like being frustrated, because it just means that I can relate to my Savior more. I know that somehow and in some way, everything is going to be okay, because Jesus knows, and He is right here with me. He “gets” it, He’s lived it too, and I love knowing that there won’t ever be something that He doesn’t.  Going home, with life changing again, there is such comfort and assurance knowing that God is the same always and everywhere, even when everything else changes. My solid and un-moving hope, no matter where I am or where I am going.

It is a custom here in Ivory Coast that when you are visiting someone at their house and are ready to leave, you have to demande la route, or ask for the road. It’s like asking for permission to leave, because when you visit someone it is understood that you are under their care, their protection. And when the person responds and “gives you the road”, they will usually add that you can have half the road, so that with the other half of the road you can come back again. That a part of their protection, their love, will always be with you as you go. For me, I don’t know exactly what the road ahead will look like. But I am blessed beyond words to be able to carry in my heart all the love I have received from the people here, all the experiences that I’ve had in Cote D’Ivoire, with me as I go.