I am excited for the week I'll spend there - Heather's wedding will be delightful, and hopefully my dear friend Zainab will make it, and I will be staying with two sets of friends who have little baby girls.... I've been warned to expect nighttime crying, and it hit me: this is the stage of life we're in now! More and more of us finally settled in marriages and careers in our 30's, done with crazy travels for a while, getting that 2-bedroom apartment or even a house, settling in and having babies.
But not me... I'm still trying to break out of that 20's mode of bouncing around, to find my home and calling and a partner. Rwanda, my biggest adventure yet. Yesterday I stopped by my landlord's house and shaking his head in utter amazement, he said, "So you're really doing it...Wow." He's so sympathetic to the unbelievable risk that it all is, that he's open to my getting a subletter for my place until I come back in September to meet my sister's next baby.... yep! I'm going to be an auntie again!
Speaking of that visit back - I've decided to close out my United mileage account, and that means a free ticket in the US or Canada.... Vancouver, see you in September!
Fears have been getting to me a little lately - having a hard time with the fundraising and feeling like I can ask people to participate in all this. It's probably just silly, but it's also daunting to compete against Christmas activities and such. Thank goodness for the month of January to finish this!
This afternoon I landed on my fellow Rwandan pilgrim friend Megan's blog... she just arrived in Rwanda a few days ago. It's her homecoming, after founding a home for 11 little street boys she met in the summer of 2008. Now there are NINETEEN boys in there and she is changing lives. It is so amazing and I love it - I loved reading how happy she is too. It helps - because it's hard to imagine leaving my cozy community and my grandmother's little blue toile armchair and ottoman that I've recently brought home and fallen in love with.... In spite of my very extraverted nature, I am a bit of a homebody and I like a lot of time at home to recharge and be my creative self. I think my grandmother may have been the same way. Funny... At any rate, it's hard to trust that I'm really going to be happy over there and that things are going to be great. I know they will be, I just don't do well with a lot of change, even when I want it and choose it. I borrowed a book recently about the "Highly Sensitive Person" and I had to laugh at how it fits me. One of many things that made sense: HSP's are pretty stressed by change, even if they throw themselves into it and want it. Definitely true of me.
Anyway Megan had these wonderful words to say, which explain all that I'm feeling too...
Hopes and dreams marinate in my mind of what the next 7 months will hold - of becoming the person I dream about being, of the ensuing change that is bound to soon come within me, of a lifestyle calling to me that will shout Jesus to the eyes of the world so downcast by the scenes of corruption, greed, and pain that have overwhelmed their vision. Excitement, hope and a small edge of hesitancy lie like a lens behind my eyes as imagines of my future flash. A life of adventure, intimacy, love, generosity and a Sacred romance call me forth, daring me to step outside of the box called “life” our culture has created...to not ignore the deepest yearnings of my heart calling me to something more. It beckons me to leave the familiar, the comfortable, the resignation that “this is just how the world is,” and to rediscover intimacy, beauty, truth, compassion, justice, love displayed in action, and adventure.Amen to every word. Not bad for a 24-year-old. :) You can follow Megan's wonderful adventures (or catch up on the miraculous past stories) on her blog... and I highly recommend the inspiration of her most current one, dated 12/5/2009, of the reunion with her boys. She didn't even know before how badly they needed her. Pure joy.
http://www.megstersblogs.blogspot.com/
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