Africa on my mind..

I remember a friend telling me years ago, "Don't ever go to Africa unless you're prepared to go back again and again. Once you've been there, Africa stays in your blood."  And at that time I was grateful that so far I had only been asked to go to Honduras, an easy $600 ticket and 3 hour plane ride away....

Anyone who has known me for more than a few weeks knows that I love all things Hispanic. Today I watched a movie that was filmed in Mexico and the birthday party scene made me nostalgic for a far away country that I consider “home”. When I hear Spanish, my heart skips a beat and when I speak Spanish, I feel like there's a part of me talking that doesn't exist in English. I wonder if others who speak two languages can relate. It's like now that I know both languages, I couldn't survive with just one or the other. My life has been made so much richer by the addition of acorazados, the music of Jesus Adrian Romero and Juan Luis Guerra and the friends I know only through Spanish. So, naturally, I have assumed that my "call" was to a Spanish-speaking, taco-eating, guitar-playing country down south. 

Over the last year, in spite of the busyness of nursing school, I have had the opportunity to travel to two new countries, one of them a whopping 9,000 miles away. I’ll admit that while I felt that God was calling me with a distinct purpose to both of these countries, I never imagined I would feel at home in either one of them the way I do in Mexico. But, I did. It occurred to me that maybe God created me to feel at home in whatever place he sent me to. What a gift. 

So, it is with something less like surprise and more like expectation that I find myself wondering if Africa could be my future “home”. From where  sit now, there are a lot of twists and turns between me...and then. But, I have had this happen before. My Friend puts a desire in me to go somewhere, do something...and then I begin to watch as the details fall into place the way the road seems to magically appears before you when you’re driving in the desert. I’ve been watching videos about Uganda. Swahili words are coming back to me from when I was 8 and first heard the beautiful language. I’m less and less surprised when friends mention an interest in the same place, an aunt who lives there, a new clinic being built nearby, an upcoming trip that they were hoping I'd want to go on. More and more on facebook, I see pictures, am directed to blogs and stories of people who inspire me, and find common threads tying me to this continent I have never seen. 

And so I continue to dream. It’s what I do best. A responsible side of me wonders about the details, what should I do RIGHT NOW? What if? What about? Where? How? And each time I ask one of those questions I am reminded about a time in the past when I asked a similar question. I retell the story to myself of how the exact amount of money was provided at the last minute in July of 2008, about how my life was protected in June of 2005, about how the perfect house was waiting for me next door to protective neighbors in a slum on August of 2005, about how a friend was provided to travel with me in August of 2009, about how I was in the wrong place at the right time in August of 2008 and was therefore protected, about how obedience placed me in dozens of situations that have provided me with friends and possessions more than any girl could ask for, about how food and shelter have been provided to me by strangers, about how I have never lacked anything, never been alone, and never needed to look back except to learn. 

And when I remember those things, I can’t help but dream about the future, tomorrow, and be prepared to just walk through the details as they come...in his time.