I am home.
A few days ago I boarded
an Emirates A330 to Dubai, UAE feeling tired, weak, and fearing the events that
would surely come and ask more of me than I was able to give. At Dubai’s Gate
215 I finally took the time to do something I had long needed to do. It was
something that had been years in the making and finally, in that foreign land,
needed faced. The great caverns of Dubai International Airport at 1 AM provided
the necessary anonymity to weep and pray bitterly, tired and oh so alone. It
was there that my belief in happy endings passed away. The irony was not lost
that even in a place so far from home personal memories still exist. At 2:30 AM
I boarded an Emirates 777 bound for overflight of Tehran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan,
Siberia, the north pole, Vancouver BC, and Oregon’s Three Sisters trying to
leave the past in the Middle East. It took 16 hours and I was (un)welcomed back
into my country by the overzealous folks of the Department of Homeland
Security. A man never feels more unwelcome than in his own country, I suppose.
The warm dry air of Phoenix greeted me and what had become monochromatic began to fill in with hues of color upon the recesses of my mind: the smell of automobiles on hot tarmac, the feel of efficiency and quality, the sound of familiar language. Kevin, Lisa, and Grace picked up a disheveled, vanquished man from the Terminal 4 north curb and took him to America’s Taco for carne asada therapy. I held Grace’s precious hand the entire time, having realized in my time away just how wonderful it is to love a child and to feel so thankful for the opportunity that Zak & Lisa’s beautiful creation has afforded me. In the familiar din of Phoenix’s best carne asada joint I began to warm up and remember. Brant showed up and all the sudden I hadn’t been gone for two and a half months; it’d been only yesterday that I’d left the desert for equatorial Africa on a journey to serve. But who can remember that now? We laughed and talked and moved easily through the rhythms of familiarity and love. Shortly I was home napping trying to escape the terrible lag that crept up behind me. I failed. Waking up from that small nap my first day back felt like dying and it wasn’t until the following morning that my body finally said, “ok, you can start to heal now.” Waking up I remembered the experiences just a few days before…
The warm dry air of Phoenix greeted me and what had become monochromatic began to fill in with hues of color upon the recesses of my mind: the smell of automobiles on hot tarmac, the feel of efficiency and quality, the sound of familiar language. Kevin, Lisa, and Grace picked up a disheveled, vanquished man from the Terminal 4 north curb and took him to America’s Taco for carne asada therapy. I held Grace’s precious hand the entire time, having realized in my time away just how wonderful it is to love a child and to feel so thankful for the opportunity that Zak & Lisa’s beautiful creation has afforded me. In the familiar din of Phoenix’s best carne asada joint I began to warm up and remember. Brant showed up and all the sudden I hadn’t been gone for two and a half months; it’d been only yesterday that I’d left the desert for equatorial Africa on a journey to serve. But who can remember that now? We laughed and talked and moved easily through the rhythms of familiarity and love. Shortly I was home napping trying to escape the terrible lag that crept up behind me. I failed. Waking up from that small nap my first day back felt like dying and it wasn’t until the following morning that my body finally said, “ok, you can start to heal now.” Waking up I remembered the experiences just a few days before…
My last few days in
Uganda were not what I had planned. I never returned to the village to say
goodbye to the boys and aunties that had taken such good care of me for two
months. I felt robbed of that necessary experience, but alas sickness does not
ask what we think or what we want. So under what can loosely be described as
“doctor’s orders”, I stayed in Kampala trying to stay above the water. Gina and
I watched Season 7 of The Closer and she fed me some tasty Indian food, Abby
& David and I went to a posh Italian restaurant in Kololo, and the
Farrell’s and I enjoyed some breakfast at Café Javas. Yet most of my time was
spent laying down and thinking. Africa had been nothing of what I had planned.
I do not regret going and I do really believe that it all happened as it should. After all, it probably isn’t possible for things to happen as they should not. Only God knows, but I know that in Africa I didn’t merely slow down, I stopped. There were days in which I sat only in the company of God. This sounds more spiritual than it is for in this time I faced some of the darkest times and darkest beliefs. I did not share them with anyone for the efficacy of sharing burdens is limited at the nether regions of the subjective agonies of life. I wish I could say I felt His presence, but more often I felt His absence. I taunted God, asking of Him things that cannot be asked. I shut down, became cold and feared a future that was made of things such as this. To be honest, I don’t know if I wanted to hear from Him. The anger and hurt had reached new depths, and the sickness provided the space for honesty about that. In that place I only wanted to be alone with the visceral immediacy of pain. In my hopeless state there were many who attended to my needs reminding me that my attempts to truly feel alone were only partially successful. Thankfully, God wasn’t allowing me to write the script of our story. It was because of people like Gina, Shawn & Sarah, and Abby & David that I made it through. When the day finally came to leave Uganda, Shawn and his new adopted son Jethro made sure I made it safely to Entebbe Airport; I was not, am not alone.
I suppose a final report on Africa is in order. This is common practice for “missionaries” and those that are “sent”. Yet ministry does not lend itself to quantification. I don’t know the impact my passion or skills brought to the table. I know that I enjoyed counseling the boys when I could and that it was helpful for them. I know that I loved doing MTS with the male leaders, even if we were unable to finish. I know that I felt within my strengths when I did trainings, even if those were few. I know that it is always an honor to spend time with my Ugandan friends, the boys in the home, and the boys on the street. I know that the Americans at the Kampala guesthouse were my lifelines in many ways and I hope that I blessed them in some capacity as they have blessed me. I am further reminded and comforted by what I know the church is and can be. I will probably never learn to like churches in Africa with their prosperity gospel and too-often heresies, but I will always love The Church in Africa for the faith, devotion, and community. God, how I have so much to learn from them. Furthermore, it is encouraging and life-giving to be reminded that God’s Church is something that knows no boundaries, respects no culture, and is promised to be victorious both now and in the end. I know that I have cast my lot in the way of a broken, crucified King and that there is no other way to the truth. I could have learned that again in a place that wasn’t Africa, but probably not as well. I needed the late night talks with Peter, the enormous pain of hearing the stories of young boys who have experienced hell, the experience of Abby & David’s great passion, the laughter in the churches, and the stark reality of Rwanda’s genocide memorials to truly learn in a way that may sink into the fleshy part of my soul.
I do not regret going and I do really believe that it all happened as it should. After all, it probably isn’t possible for things to happen as they should not. Only God knows, but I know that in Africa I didn’t merely slow down, I stopped. There were days in which I sat only in the company of God. This sounds more spiritual than it is for in this time I faced some of the darkest times and darkest beliefs. I did not share them with anyone for the efficacy of sharing burdens is limited at the nether regions of the subjective agonies of life. I wish I could say I felt His presence, but more often I felt His absence. I taunted God, asking of Him things that cannot be asked. I shut down, became cold and feared a future that was made of things such as this. To be honest, I don’t know if I wanted to hear from Him. The anger and hurt had reached new depths, and the sickness provided the space for honesty about that. In that place I only wanted to be alone with the visceral immediacy of pain. In my hopeless state there were many who attended to my needs reminding me that my attempts to truly feel alone were only partially successful. Thankfully, God wasn’t allowing me to write the script of our story. It was because of people like Gina, Shawn & Sarah, and Abby & David that I made it through. When the day finally came to leave Uganda, Shawn and his new adopted son Jethro made sure I made it safely to Entebbe Airport; I was not, am not alone.
I suppose a final report on Africa is in order. This is common practice for “missionaries” and those that are “sent”. Yet ministry does not lend itself to quantification. I don’t know the impact my passion or skills brought to the table. I know that I enjoyed counseling the boys when I could and that it was helpful for them. I know that I loved doing MTS with the male leaders, even if we were unable to finish. I know that I felt within my strengths when I did trainings, even if those were few. I know that it is always an honor to spend time with my Ugandan friends, the boys in the home, and the boys on the street. I know that the Americans at the Kampala guesthouse were my lifelines in many ways and I hope that I blessed them in some capacity as they have blessed me. I am further reminded and comforted by what I know the church is and can be. I will probably never learn to like churches in Africa with their prosperity gospel and too-often heresies, but I will always love The Church in Africa for the faith, devotion, and community. God, how I have so much to learn from them. Furthermore, it is encouraging and life-giving to be reminded that God’s Church is something that knows no boundaries, respects no culture, and is promised to be victorious both now and in the end. I know that I have cast my lot in the way of a broken, crucified King and that there is no other way to the truth. I could have learned that again in a place that wasn’t Africa, but probably not as well. I needed the late night talks with Peter, the enormous pain of hearing the stories of young boys who have experienced hell, the experience of Abby & David’s great passion, the laughter in the churches, and the stark reality of Rwanda’s genocide memorials to truly learn in a way that may sink into the fleshy part of my soul.
So now I am home and
charged with remembering and taking this knowledge forward, even as my
definition of home must again change. If home is where the heart is I may never
know where home is, but I know that my physical address will in one week be
quite different from what it is now. PHX to PDX. Leaving Arizona elicits
emotions that are too complex for this space, this letter. If Season 1 was
growing up in the Midwest and Season 2 was the five years in the Marine Corps,
than my five years here was the 3rd Season of my life. It was not at
all what I’d expected. I thought I would grow in to the man that I needed to
be, but I do not believe that is the case. I thought I would know more about
life, but I believe I know less. Sometimes we care called to the desert to
discover the brokenness that always existed; sometime we don’t recover. And yet
the time has come to move forward, stake a new claim. I leave behind a
community family I could have never dreamed existed. I leave behind a new niece
that I adore. I leave behind a desert I know intimately and respect deeply. I
leave behind the catalysts for fractured memories of failures, victories, joys,
and pain. I embrace an unknown future.
Last Tuesday I left Uganda. This Tuesday I leave Phoenix. Brant, Kevin and I will load up my junk in a rented minivan (whatever can’t fit stays) and head to Santa Barbara and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Astoria, Oregon and then on to Portland where on Monday I begin my first grad school classes. I’m not even remotely prepared, but as always, I’ll shoot from the hip and hope for the best. The opportunity before me is one that few people get and I plan on capitalizing on the blessing. I am cautiously hopeful all the while steeling myself for an extended season of loss. I have never known less about what the future holds and that can be somewhat disconcerting at 28. But most of my plans and dreams for my life have already collapsed so I’m hoping God can take what is effectively a tear-stained blank slate and write something new and beautiful on it. Whether I like it or not I’m quickly running out of things to rely on besides Him. So that is my prayer for Season 4, from dryness to rain, that He would write a new story for me and that I would lose control of that which I hold on to with all my life… that which has only produced death. It is time to integrate my pain, loss, and knowledge into my story. I surrender, God! I was called out to the desert and was faithful to go. Now I am called to the land of rain and I want to be faithful, so I ask You to do something new and create in me something beautiful! That is my prayer. Amen.
Last Tuesday I left Uganda. This Tuesday I leave Phoenix. Brant, Kevin and I will load up my junk in a rented minivan (whatever can’t fit stays) and head to Santa Barbara and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Astoria, Oregon and then on to Portland where on Monday I begin my first grad school classes. I’m not even remotely prepared, but as always, I’ll shoot from the hip and hope for the best. The opportunity before me is one that few people get and I plan on capitalizing on the blessing. I am cautiously hopeful all the while steeling myself for an extended season of loss. I have never known less about what the future holds and that can be somewhat disconcerting at 28. But most of my plans and dreams for my life have already collapsed so I’m hoping God can take what is effectively a tear-stained blank slate and write something new and beautiful on it. Whether I like it or not I’m quickly running out of things to rely on besides Him. So that is my prayer for Season 4, from dryness to rain, that He would write a new story for me and that I would lose control of that which I hold on to with all my life… that which has only produced death. It is time to integrate my pain, loss, and knowledge into my story. I surrender, God! I was called out to the desert and was faithful to go. Now I am called to the land of rain and I want to be faithful, so I ask You to do something new and create in me something beautiful! That is my prayer. Amen.
“I’m gonna take that grain and I’m gonna crush it
all together in the flour of a bread as small and simple and sincere as when
the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another the gentle up of mutual
surrender tears.” –Aaron Weiss.
Thanks for reading these
posts, rants, and brainstorms. I hope they have blessed you in some way. I know
it has blessed me to be heard. Moreover, thank you to those who prayed for me
both over this time in Africa or at any time in my life, you are greatly
appreciated. Thank you as well for those who supported me financially. I hope
you do not view your hard-earned dollars as being spent on something that
ultimately was a waste.
This is my final Africa
Journal update in real time although I do have a number of unfinished blog
entries about a number of topics I wrote about while in Uganda that I’ll
probably share both here and on my blog (www.glocaldan.blogspot.com) at a later
time. To my Phoenician friends and family, thank you and goodbye. I love you
more than you know.
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment