I just got home from Kenya. So sorry that my posts have been infrequent but my time in Kenya was at first an exercise in rest and then an exercise in activity, neither of which were terribly condusive to writing. I've learned alot after three weeks away from home and country living with a new family and in a new environment. I loved it. The food, the people, the experiences. Later I'll write a gushing blog post about all the wonderful I experienced, but today I feel the need to write about the hard.
I was petrified to leave for Africa.
In fact, starting after finals, I dreaded leaving. I was excited sometimes, but there were so many "what ifs" about the process of getting to Kenya by myself and then staying there for weeks - I found the courage I'd felt as I thought about the trip months in advance deserted me as the time to leave approached - I was worried about my time in the hospital, whether or not I'd get along with the family I was to stay with, a myriad of things, really.
I sat on the plane on one of my two redeyes on the way over. (Two redeyes isn't that bad when you're short because there's enough room to put your legs in a semi elongated position and lean back into a semi reclined position, leading to semi decent sleep.) I don't remember which night it was, but I dreamed most of the night about getting any and all sorts of parasitic worms. The thought of getting them has always grossed me out, and I woke up feeling even more scared than I had previously. A few weeks into my trip I had the same dream and I woke up and realized that if I get worms or any other variety of parasite, it'll be okay. There will be grace for that and there's nothing to fear. "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." I just realized while writing that the juxtaposition of those two responses, much of which is due to Chuck and Amy's very level-headed approach to the prospect of tropical diseases.
It isn't that the things I feared didn't come to pass, in fact, on the whole, they did. I made mistakes in the hospital, got lost in London (but was able to find my way back to the tube station I was headed to), fainted like a champ in the nursery, made a cultural faux pas, and so on. I met babies who died, saw hard things, experienced hard things. It wasn't that the hard didn't happen it was rather that there was grace for them. In the hard moments, I found Christ in ways I hadn't before. I thank God that even though I fained while standing up I'd had the sense to pass of the syringe I was using to feed a preemie to someone else and that I didn't break my jaw even though I whacked my head. The blessings abounded.
I only cried once in Kenya, which in some ways surprised me. I feel as though part of giving a person dignity is not responding with shock to their medical condition and instead greeting them with a smile and hello in whatever language they speak. When I worked in the hospital, therefore, I was never near tears. However, once I started my research I started to tear up. Reading names of kids, knowing that all of them would watch their mother suffer and many would watch their mother did, seeing that some had HIV themselves and that they would suffer because of the disease was simply heartbreaking. I got onto the plane on the way home and realized that I couldn't hold them or hand them food, or care for them physically anymore and I sat in my seat and cried. "Grief is great," says Aslan in The Magician's Nephew, and I feel the greatness and depth of that grief these days in a way I hadn't before.
When I arrived home I discovered that the kitty I've had since age 4, who has been a comforter and companion throughout my growing up years is sicker than when I left. We've been waiting for his liver cancer to get to the point that we had to put him down, and it looks as though the time has come. Tomorrow we take him to the vet, and I'm already a mess about it. It isn't grief in the same way I grieve for the kids - whiskers is, after all, a cat, not a human and his death is nowhere near as tragic as the ones at Tenwek. Also, he had a long and full life, not one that was cut short. And yet, I've never met a better kitty. He loves me and lets me know. He's been particularly cuddly since I got home and I've so enjoyed getting to hold him. Saying goodbye will be hard and I'll miss my boy. I already do.
I take refuge in the truth that Jesus wept. He cried, even though he knew the end of the story. When I suffer, when we suffer, he suffers with us. As trite as this seems, he loves the kids and the cat far more than I ever could. He loved the kids enough to die for them, to give the most precious thing he had for them. That is the God I serve, and so it is to him that I run for comfort. I have at times, run from him, angry that he could allow such suffering and that he did not put an end to it, but I'm finding that running to him for comfort instead of running away to lick my wounds alone is a much better way to function.
And so I continue crying. I cry for Chelangat and Chepkoech, two little girls I got to meet while in Kenya. I cry for Docas' family, who lost their little girl. I cry for the two boys whose names I can't remember, one of whom died and the other is quite sick with AIDs. I cry for the kids whose test results are the basis of my study. I cry for all the dark inside of me. I cry because HIV exists. I cry for all the broken in the world. And yet I rejoice. I rejoice because there is a savior. I rejoice because he so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. I rejoice because I was able to serve. I rejoice because my God weeps with me. I rejoice because there will be a day when everything is set right. I rejoice because Chelangat is still alive. I rejoice because God is teaching me through the pain of it all. I rejoice because I'm alive.
May you also feel the tension between joy and sorrow, laughter and weeping, happiness and pain.
Joanna
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