Africa, You Have Stained My Soul and Opened My Eyes

Tonight I feel as if my heart is about to burst inside my chest. This afternoon I drove to the airport and said goodbye to a group of my friends leaving for Uganda. As I watched the shuffling of passports and suitcases, I swallowed the lump in my throat as I thought about how just a few short weeks ago it was me leaving for Africa, nervous and full of enthusiasm and passion. I've been back in America for four days now, and I've woken up each morning early with the sun, hoping to find myself in Ethiopia with my team scurrying about, asking about breakfast and complaining about noisy goats. When I wake up enough to realize there's no mosquito net over my bed and that I'm siting in complete silence, alone in my room, my heart sinks and I feel a yearning I've never known before. Everyone told me transitioning back to America would be difficult, but I could have never anticipated the stain Africa would leave on my soul. My friend Chris told me that once you go to Africa, you never really feel at home in America. I wish I could say he was wrong. It feels like Africa is clinging to my very being, the way the dirt stuck to my skin and wouldn't wash away with water.

For the first day or so back in the States, I simply felt numb. As I answered questions and showed pictures, I couldn't feel anything. There was no emotion behind my words or my thoughts. All I could do was present the facts, and the personal memories seemed locked away. Even now, I haven't told anyone the details of even a single memory. As I type this, hot tears swell in my eyes and fall down my face as I remember conversations, victories, people. Incredible sadness hits me when I consider the reality that I might never see my friends and family there or walk Bahir Dar's streets again.

Although I've been home for several days now, I'm just now beginning to process my time in Africa. It's like it just hit me today that I'm not there anymore, that it's just a memory now. I cannot express with words the way I feel right now. I am filled with joy for the work that was accomplished during our time there, yet my heart is broken for the work that still needs to be done. I've never understood so clearly the condition of this world, and now that my eyes have been opened, I am left with this incredible since of urgency and absolutely no idea how to act. My time in Africa made me question everything, and it made me want to be a part of the solution to the problems I now see. The thing is, I am so small and so far away.

Right before our last night in Ethiopia, two of my team members, Derick and Brittany, and I sat outside with our primary translator, Kassahun, talking. The others in our group had gone to bed, and it was getting late. Before we called it a night, I asked Kassahun, "What final word of advice would you give to us as we go back to America?" He thought about it for a moment and then replied, "Jesus is coming back soon. And you must live like that is true." I feel like more than anything else I experienced in Ethiopia, that moment will stick with me the most -- hearing those words and seeing my friends' faces in the moonlight, aware of everything around me and wondering how I could embrace the significance of what was just said. It seemed so simple, but really, it's not. That's not the kind of statement that you can hear and just nod and agree with and then walk away without changing things. Honestly, those words present the most incredible challenge possible, and to agree with them fully demands I change so much of my life. It means dropping my trivial pursuits, abandoning my selfishness and my obsession with comfort and pleasure, and charging forward to help fulfill the great commission at all costs. If I'm honest with myself and with you, there is so much in my life that needs to change, and it took me going to Africa to see that.