The Start of the Longest Week of my Life: Day 1

Before leaving for my very short trip to Swaziland, I prayed that God would make this the longest week of my life. It has been three full days and it already feels like a week has passed with everything that has been packed in so far! Yebo Jesu!

I left for Swazi on a Thursday evening flight from Chicago to Germany. During the eight hour flight, I sat next to a nice man around my age who was traveling to Chicago for his brother's wedding. He was kind and even offered his shoulder for me to sleep on after I kept rustling back and forth trying to find a workable condition to attempt to get some zs. The only problem with the young man was that he had caught a cold from someone on a previous flight the day before. He was constantly sniffling and coughing on and off. I hoped I wouldn't catch his cold, but after the eight hour flight, as soon as I stepped into the Frankfurt airport, my nose started running. I had thirteen hours to kill, yes it was THIRTEEN hour layover, so I found a nice corner by some windows that had a little work table (so I could correct all my students' papers to pass the day). Within minutes of nestling into my spot, my runny nose cost me my last package of kleenex, so I resulted to “borrowing” a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom. Starting to feel quite miserable, I prayed, “Lord, please don't let me have this cold on the plane ride; that's the worst place to be sick.” Throughout the day I drank lots of liquids and used the airborne tablet. Ten hours and a toilet paper roll later, I was bustling up my luggage and heading to my gate sniffle free!

The twelve hour flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg was the best plane ride I've ever had! For the first time in numerous travels, I slept for the majority of the ride! The Lufthansa plane seats were fantastic, and I arrived in Johannesburg feeling exhilarated and excited! I took a shuttle bus five hours to Swazi and finally found home! Upon hearing the rolling wheels of my luggage, Christina Hostetter lept from her balcony seat of the volunteer house, ran down the stairs, and embraced me with the best welcome home hug ever! I knew with her embrace this is exactly where I was meant to be.

My first full day in Swaziland was Sunday. After church in the morning, Christina and I swung by Mangwaneni to pick up Ayanda, Johannes, and Pununu to take them with us to visit Tenele's homestead. It was an incredible forty minute drive with Christina and I in the front and our kids chattering excitedly in the back.

When Tenele, baby MK, and Tenele's mother met us on the dirt road to take us to their homestead, I wasn't sure my heart could be any fuller. Little Lucia had teeth! And Tenele looked so happy, as did her mother. Tenele's mother cannot speak English, so much of our converstaion is through smiles and embraces. Once at the homestead, Tenele introduced her other two sisters and their babies as well. It was a full house, and although the land looked promising with growing vegetables, the living conditions weren't great. Throughout our conversation, Christina and I politely swatted away the swarming amount of flies in the room. Lucia looked very thin, and I was worried about her.  Her head looked oversized compared to her thin and somewhat bony body structure.  Tenele told me she had been sick, and it looked like it was more than just being sick, so I told Tenele to meet me the following day in town and I'd take them to the clinic to check on Lucia.

Later that afternoon, Johannes and Ayanda came over to visit.  My lovely students back in the states had decided to sign and send a soccer ball for Johannes as a get well gesture after I had told them about Johannes' heart condition.  So, I presented the ball to Johannes and his reaction was unexpected.  One of hte biggest smiles I have EVER seen from him spread across his face as his eyes light up the room.  He held the ball tenderly and gave me a big, long hug saying, "I've dreamed of having a soccer ball of my own."  How incredibly humbling to have a young man so appreciative of something so seemingly small.  He tossed the ball around and looked and each and every name of the students who signed it, asking for me to pronounce the names for him.  Another student of mine had donate a bunch of clothes, so Johannes tried on a few and loved the shirts so much he started to model them for the camera.  

The first full day of Swazi closed with a trip to the grocery store with Christina and a joint effort in making the best chili I've had!  

Wow, what a trip and it's only day one!  The time I spent with Christina and my children is already worth the travel and cost of being here.  God truly is making this the longest week of my life. 

To be continued...

Wholly Broken

Wholly Broken

People often wonder if I left my heart in Swazi, why don’t I go get it?  Why don’t I move there?  Why don’t I live there if I miss it that much?  Sometimes I don’t know the answer to that; many times I wish I did live in Swazi; sometimes I think about moving the next chance I can.  I bury myself with my job here and busy myself with life so that the pang of separation from loved ones and desperate sting of longing to hold my children would go away.  But it never does.  The wound will never be healed; my heart will never be whole because I live in two worlds—two worlds starkly different from each other, two worlds that can’t possible coexist together, two worlds that hold two halves of my very soul, two worlds that will never mend a broken heart.  So the real question is, which world would I rather live in?

My heart leaps at the answer, “Swazi” but there’s a gentle voice inside my being that stings, “stay.”  The choice is daunting, and the longer I stay the more I burn.  Sometimes it feels like self-infliction.  How can I possibly live like this much longer?  How can I embrace life with an injured wing?  How can I stand in front of a room full of my high school students with my Mimio board and all the technology I want at my fingertips, yet ache so passionately to be standing in front of that hot, colorless, boxed in room with a piece of chalk and a blackboard, teaching students who giggle at my accent?  All the technology in the world means nothing next to teaching a 14 year old prostitute the ABCs.  All the parent teacher conferences and staff appreciation mean nothing next to a fatherless teenage girl who thanks me for giving “hope to everyone.”  All the money I get in my lofty teacher salary means nothing next to paying for a bright young lady’s education when she had been kicked out of school for being pregnant, though she had been raped.  All of the comforts of family and friends being a phone call away mean nothing next to holding a baby that has been nick-named in my honor.  So if my all is in Swazi, why is not all of me there?

As I stand in front of my American students, I look into their eyes—no, I search their eyes, and I find my answer.  Are these two worlds really that vastly different from each other?  The eyes of my students say, “look deeper, look beyond your pain, and look at mine.”  The worlds are unquestionably contrasting, but the need for love and hope in both worlds are in fact one and the same.  I need look no further than the young faces before me to see that they ache for the same things my Swazi children ache for: to be noticed, to be wanted, to be loved.  My American students’ eyes hold my answer, their eyes hold my purpose, their eyes hold my broken heart.  Some smile and joke and laugh to cover the scars; some never try because they’ve been told they’ll never be good enough; some are loud and obnoxious, overriding the sting of feeling forgotten; some are quiet and reserved, never volunteering an answer in fear of their classmates’ laughter; and all, all of them come with a wound or more that still needs healing.  Some wounds are physical, the scars of bloodied arms from a razor, the scars of self-infliction, the scars that say physical pain is better than emotional damage.  Other wounds are invisible, unless you search their eyes.  Some eyes tell of untold horrors, of abuse she has witnessed, of abuse she has endured.  Some eyes are dry from the waterfall of tears that soak his pillow at night because he can’t cry in front of anyone else.  Some eyes search mine, begging me to see what they don’t want to say.  And when their eyes can’t say it any longer, the brave ones put it on paper.  Their writing moves me, breaks me, consoles me, and shows me I do have purpose here.  They show me that their hunger is more than bread and butter, it’s for truth and love.  They show me that they aren’t so different than the ones I desperately love in Swaziland; they give me a reason to stay when my heart groans, “go.” 

Maybe these worlds aren’t so vastly different from each other after all.  I was a vessel of hope for my students in Swazi; I am a vessel for healing in students’ hearts here; I was a mother to many children in Swazi, and I am tenderly nicknamed “Mama Kate” here.  Yes, my heart is split between two different worlds, but I am a teacher, a mother, and a lover all the same.   And maybe that’s the whole point.  My purpose here is not to be whole, my heart is not meant to be mine; I am called to fulfill His purpose for His people everywhere, and He means everywhere.  Therefore, I glory in my brokenness and put my heart in my heavenly home, because only then and only He can make me whole.