O w e n s t o A f r i c a

washed in grace

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Africa Inland Mission
Epic Church
Excel Church
First Missionary Church of Berne
Kapaa Missionary
Lihue Missionary
Muncie First Church of the Nazarene
Old Stone Presbyterian

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PO Box 80
Kijabe, Kenya
00220

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Back in the day when I went off to college (“when the world was still in black and white,” according to my hilarious children), I was so absorbed in having the time of my life that I didn’t know to miss my family. I was fine, fine, fine until we hit Christmas break and a blizzard slid in sideways to South Bend. The rest of campus trekked back to their moms and dads and many-stockinged fireplaces while I blinked quietly at a canceled flight and the 5000 miles between me and the people who loved me best.⁣ ⁣ Just like that, I was desperate for home.⁣ ⁣ This is the thing about MKs: they generally don’t go home. Not for fall break or Thanksgiving or Christmas or summer, and I think it mostly doesn’t occur to them to care until they watch everyone else head out.⁣ ⁣ I’m big on feelings this weekend (see: college orientation), but the one at the tippiest top is gratitude. I’m thankful for all the folks who fill that parent gap — the grandpeople and aunts & uncs, the friends who’ve known us since the cretaceous era. All y’all house and water my kids, you help them get summer jobs, you risk life and limb teaching them to drive (I am sorry and thank you). You stuff them with honeyed ham dinners. You sign them up on your phone plans. You let them fog up your bathrooms and eat too much cereal and teach your kids questionable jokes.⁣ ⁣ This will come as a surprise to zero people, but I am crying actual rolling tears as I type this. Thank you for standing in my shoes with so much heart and grace, and for doing the things I wish I could do for my college kids.⁣ ⁣ My heart is full.⁣ ⁣ #ittakesavillage #extravagantmercy

We are back in the land of slow corn and summer heat, and I could not be more in love. July is such a good idea.⁣ ⁣ I feel like we’ve shimmied and army-crawled through the past several years, and it’s a relief to curl into a place where we’re known without annotations. This is what it means to be home.⁣ ⁣ We’ve been to the grocery store three times now, and it’s like a destination unto itself. Everyone wants to come. The kids wander through the aisles goggling at rock-bottom American prices (Marshmallows are a dollar! And they’re fluffy and normal!) and composing impromptu poetry with titles like “We really need to buy these pizza rolls, Mom.”⁣ ⁣ It’s just been a week, and already you have nourished our souls with tacos. You have squeezed us and looked into our eyeballs and asked good questions. You have listened to pieces of our stories and cried at all the right places.⁣ ⁣ These days are fraught with seismic shifts in my emotional landscape, and I wonder: Is this just my life now? Will my heart ever find its footing? Perhaps it won’t, and I’m at the point where I think that’ll shake out okay. I have my people and my God. The rest will burn down around us to light and dust, and we will call ourselves blessed.⁣ ⁣ #homeagain #thesearemypeople #tacosforever

“In the span of God’s wide and rowdy family, we all belong to one another and there is no such thing as other people’s children. Take a look around. Find someone to nurture. This is how we’ll rise.” - @shannanwrites #eatingisforeveryone #lovesongforthelonghaul #ministryofordinaryplaces #KenyaKidsCan

Two minutes ago I was the mom of small people, the kind of humans who slide notes about “I love you Mom and can we have pudding cups” under the bathroom door, the kind who find the physical act of closing their mouths to blow through their noses insurmountably complicated. Two minutes ago I was at that mom-stage: besieged but enamored. Only it occurred to me yesterday that I am now the mom of adults. Well, 2/5ths of them so far, but the youngers are well on their way toward autonomy. At four distinct points in my twenties, I wheeled out of the hospital with a warm ball of sleepy newborn, unnerved that they let me exit the building with an actual human. Like, shouldn’t you at least pop-quiz me first? And what if it doesn’t like me? I wonder sometimes about this path we followed to Kenya - CAR - Uganda - Kenya again. Our lives before this felt like a different planet, a sunny one that looked you in the eye and didn’t ask gutting questions. I wonder if we all feel fuller, more awake, or if Africa cost us a brightness we’ll never recover. Both, I guess. It’s usually a little of both. “I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world” (Mary Oliver).

One thing we’ve started telling our kids is to call us. If they find themselves in an iffy spot, we don’t care if it’s 4am or two countries away or 300% their own fault: call us. We will always come for you. My parents didn’t say these words exactly, but I absolutely knew this was true. Growing up, I was 85% the easy child and 15% the worst, but no amount of my own stupidity or betrayal kept my dad from showing up for me. That man would’ve shouldered continents aside to get to his kids, and I can’t think of a sweeter, more vital gift: the knowing that our parents were relentlessly for us. That we couldn’t step outside of their devotion. I know this isn’t everyone’s reality, and some people’s father-stories are lukewarm or shattering. If this is you, I’m sorry. I wish I could bring you home to meet my dad. In about two seconds, he’d sign himself up to be your dad too. I hope, though, that you find others who’ll stand squarely in that gap for you. When I was 5000 miles from home at 17, Dr. Erdel filled that father-spot for me. When we lived in different countries from our three oldest boys, a bunch of relatives and friends — steely men and women both — stood up for and beside our kids. (Y’all are still doing this for Braden, and we are the luckiest.) I tip my heart to every single one of you today. Keep showing up with your quiet heroics. You’ve made our lives possible and bright. #thisguy #fathersday2019 #peoplewhocare #thanksdad

Sometimes I google-map Zemio just to lay eyeballs on that place. I never quite realize I’m holding my breath till the satellite image loads and everyone still has their roofs. Zoom in on this earth-map, and nobody’s house is a burnt brick shell. The brush and vines haven’t shuffled back in to reclaim vacant neighborhoods. This is Zemio two years ago, a chattery town glazed in jungle heat, where you could slap soapy wash at the river, or duck into a shop for gingered tea. Where families gathered outside as dusk settled, curved around small fires like half-moons, and when you lifted your gaze, you’d see dozens of neighboring fires winking back at you. From the sky at night, our town looked like a jar of fireflies. Fast-forward to right now, and virtually no one has come home. From the sky at night, Zemio is a spill of ink pooling into the silence around it. I wonder if God misses the fireflies, but I know I’m framing it wrong. He’s not unmoved, observing from a clinical distance. He’s Immanuel, sitting with us in hunger, in the honest keening for home. “We are called to enter into one another’s pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome” (Rachel Held Evans). So that much we do: we keep company in a topography of pain. Meanwhile food + seeds are rolling in, Sam’s Purse keeps wading in to help, our senior class here at school just gave a boatload of their own money for CAR. The way these guys stick around are a balm to that ache inside my ribs. This is the love song threading through our lives. These are holy days. #prayforCAR #Zemio #CentralAfricanRepublic

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