My heart craves Africa today. It always does on this day, even if I am not conscious of it. I wake up with a pain in my heart, a hole in my chest that only landing back on African soil can fill, a longing to spend the day at the Eldoret club with friends, laughing and playing and not understanding a care in the world. A longing to worship my Jesus in an old theatre built during colonial times for silly plays and then used by God to bring many to Himself. I have a craving for a really soggy bag of “chips” (French fries) covered in salt and vinegar and ketchup.
I yearn for a drive into town to make the rounds at the grocer to see friends, stopping to see Mama Rhoda my sweet African grandmother at her hair salon, on to the post office to see if there is any mail (it was called mail then, paper, ink, stamps) from the US, a dash to Eldoret center…to see my friends Hena and Kamal and perhaps even stay a while to work behind the counter at their photo shop. Perhaps down a back road to spend tea time with Billu my darling Indian auntie who holds my heart in her hands.
But time has moved on for all of us. The town has changed, the club is remodeled, people have relocated, the paradise I once new is now lost. But I am grateful for the peace it once afforded me. I am grateful that God saw fit in His dream for my life that I would spend my childhood safe and secure in an African home. I am grateful that I had parents that were obedient to the calling of God in their life and sacrificed to take their children halfway around the world. I am thankful for the Aunties and uncles that were brought into my life to enrich it, to mold it and fashion it into the life I have today.
You fill my dreams at night, you steal my thoughts during the day, my prayers surround you and ask for God’s protection and blessings over you. Missionary friends, Indian aunts and uncles, African family....the village that raised me...I love you.
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