home.

Home. It is the place that you are supposed to feel entirely at peace. A place where you are loved, accepted, and comfortable. As of today, I have been home for one week. However, home feels different now.

Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy to be here. To participate in all of the things that I have loved doing for the majority of my life, to see my loved ones, and to have a decent shower. Yet, I can’t shake the feeling that I now have two homes. Tanzania will always hold a special place in my heart. I find myself longing for the smells, sounds, and people that once felt so foreign and scary to me. However, I am allowing myself to do things at home that I never did before. I am extending myself grace in a way that I never have before, I am allowing myself to employ the art of  “pole pole” in a place that has NEVER heard of it.

People keep telling me that I did the children I was working with such an incredible service. That I changed their lives. But I don’t see it that way at all. My students and my sweet Arusha changed me more than I could have ever changed them. They taught me more about love, grace, peace, and overwhelming joy than I could have ever imagined and I will never be able to express enough gratitude for that. Being home again feels weird, it feels foreign. How weird is that?? After spending just three months in a radically different culture, the place that I had called home for my entire life now feels strange! I’ll be honest with you, I was not expecting that.

However, when it came to my trip (and apparently my arrival back home) nothing, and I mean nothing, happened the way that I expected it to. But I guess this just another opportunity for me to grow. Another opportunity for me to get out of the boat and trust in something much greater than myself. My heart longs for Africa, but I will be present here. I will love my people a little bit harder than I did before, and I will hopefully be able to start planning my return to the land I love so dearly as soon as possible.

Nakupenda Tanzania. I’ll see you soon.

Song of the Week: Burn the Ships by: for KING & COUNTRY