Showing posts with label missing home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label missing home. Show all posts

Monday, 17 August 2015

The Post That Has No Name




I don't know what to call this post yet, but give me a second.

...

Just kidding, I i still don't know what to call it.


I haven't posted anything on my blog in a really long time; I remember always wanting it to be better (and, actually, hating the zebra background but being unable to find anything better). I remember loving the responses that I got, even though there weren't many comments. More than anything, I loved looking at the statistics and seeing the audience spread across the globe. I was an awkward highschooler who was happy to have any readers and nothing was better than seeing the countries that the readers were from; not only Namibia and the United States, but Russia, France, South Africa, Latvia, and several others. I loved learning about what people love to read (which, by the way, is not this post, because there are no photos and it is not arranged in an oddly satisfying list of information).


However, when I left for college, I found it harder to write anything. I had all these ideas for better posts and I wanted to make a prettier, more exciting blog out of this. Maybe I will someday, when I get my head around everything that I'm doing (ha.) or at least feel more like a grown up (when does that kick in?) or just maybe when I've sorted exactly what it is to be a grown up missionary kid.


Which is complicated, by the way; sinking into my existence as a repatriated adult MK. My life isn't so exotic. My window panes aren't dusty. My feet don't ache from hours of dance. I no longer wake up to the cries and happy sounds that little girls make when they're getting ready for school or to the light of the Namibian sun as it rises to bake the roof of our house. I miss youth group and music and teaching dance classes, but I miss being Ousie most of all.


And it isn't all gone, by the way (I'd like to end on a happier note). There's a reason I cannot prioritize blogging anymore! I'm learning great things and it's all coming at me at eighty words per minute (which is my typing speed, by the way), at the speed of whipping pirouettes (which I can barely do anymore), and I feel like a child with a whole lot of big, grown up decisions on the table in front of me, but it's so exciting. I have places to go, things to discover, people to love - a future, but also a past I'm still connected to.


And I'm praying all the time that I never forget where I am from.


Thursday, 29 May 2014

The Deal with Good Byes

I've said good bye to a lot lately - people, places, old comforts - without any true promise of seeing or experiencing their presence again. I have had to move on from dying relationships, leave behind sweet places I couldn't live at forever, and do what I could to let go of material comforts that faded, were eaten up, or were just too heavy to bring in my suitecase with me across the ocean.

The truth is, I hate to cry in front of people. I really do ... but the dignity I protect is a luxury I cannot afford when I've said the number of hard good byes that I have. I always wanted to say that letting go of people got easier as I got used to it, but I can't seem to callouse my heart enough. I wonder if anyone can.

But here I am; after stretching seasons, cycles of tears and laughter, quiet nights alone and slow mornings where I have little motivation to get up and live ... I am alive and I am thriving. I am in a country I have never called my own ... with friends I never would have met otherwise, particular, simple joys I never would have known elsewhere, and a blossoming peace in the solitude and among the questions. I have no doubt God will take care of my family and I; my faith has held strong! And now, after the many good byes I have suffered with, the seasons of testing, adjustment and faith, I find myself looking at a completely new, fresh, and exciting life ... just breaching the horizon.

 
 

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
John 14: 18, KJV

Thursday, 30 January 2014

My Africa

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNBFzqC6k3lqAjW8ta1uicNFkq3eYmUTcjIQqle9KNnAJJ4z6AqTarEco1QlsWB1nwfgpqeGUojx8vJL5taPUU320zG9mAxbMYofFYb9T6yQBpRKmzVsDWHA4ELG2sTB2UtR-cZ1k_QUc/s1600/My+Africa.jpg




 I found this poetic and real. It's a good description of the place I miss! This isn't much of a blog post, but I don't think I need to add anything else.

Originally from this website:  http://www.afrostylemag.com/ASM9/

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