When you realize that 365 days have come and gone, four seasons have run their course, and a different number goes at the end of all your dates, there is always a surreal sense of, "wow, that went fast" and "has it only been a year?"
2013 was a freaking blur. I made new friends who quickly became family, then turned around and said goodbye to them after only five savored months in their company. Two of those months were spent between Uganda and Kenya, where I discovered I know so little of the vast, beautiful world we live in. I don't know exactly what I intended to do while in Africa, but if I went to teach, I left taught; taught what it means to love, shown a new side of God, and given a new taste of life through every piece of chapati and hot cup of chai.
Coming back to the good old U.S. of A., life felt different than it did before. I felt like a fish back in water. I always knew the unspoken 'code of conduct' when I walked into a room. I also felt a bit trapped; I wanted everyone to know what I knew, but couldn't teach them. I wanted to leave the country again, keep tasting what I didn't know of the world, or at least go back to the family I had known for those sweet 5 months.
But I couldn't. So God took me through an overgrown garden and taught me how to pick out the roses through the weeds. (Matthew 13:24-29) He introduced me to two young women at my job who desperately needed to know they were valuable, loved. They taught me all over again how to love unconditionally, even when it takes a battle.
Then there were three more months of YWAM. Three months of finding hope in every bad thing that happens in the world. Human trafficking, AIDS, abortion, refugee camps, lack of water sanitation...you name it. It's hard to believe God is good when there's no hope of fixing one of those problems, let alone all of them. But He is good. Bringing justice to unjust places is a slow, long, steady journey. It is as much one step as it is the whole journey.
Here's to you, 2014, and every adventure you have in store. //
