Immediate

Over the past three summers, I had mentally coached myself to try and adjust to Canadian culture as the scary word “Re-entry” hovered on my life’s horizon. After several summers of hanging out with family, working at camp and just generally enjoying Canadian summers, I was convinced that I would most definitely miss Kenya but I would cope better than your average tck with the insanity that is re-entry. Well, it’s not over yet but I can say that in these last three weeks, I have come to know intimately the pieces of my heart that have been lost forever to the brokenness and beauty of the African continent and the people I’ve met there, as well as the many others I have met who live across the globe.

In this time of discovery, I have pinpointed one of the things I miss most about life in Kenya. Everything in Kenya (and to a certain extent, Mozambique) is immediate. The beauty of a sunset over the Mara or the stunning smile of a child is immediate. Poverty. Corruption. Crime. Dirt. Goats. Everything in Canada is so stream-lined. Highways (traffic lights are weird). Even rough neighborhoods have the appearance of cleanliness. Government buildings. Airports. Fast food restaurants. Aesthetically, everything seeks to draw your attention and even dull your mind to the prickles of reason (hello, advertising!). Perhaps it’s the innate disparity of social classes that is seen so clearly in the couple kilometers between Kibera and Muthaiga, but I miss the constant, everyday reminder that life is not streamlined and, in my opinion, should not be streamlined.

One of my “bosses” at camp constantly joked about me being from a third world country and I laughed along with him because a piece of me wishes I had more than seven years of memories to tie me to Kenya. I’m the girl who stood up at Camp Wildwood’s 100 year celebration during staff introductions and introduced herself as “Gelato, 17 and from Nairobi, Kenya” in Bouctouche, New Brunswick.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not complaining. There were pieces and aspects of my life in Kenya that caused me great stress and pain. I am ready to move on and find another chapter of life. However, I am not quite prepared to deal with a narrow-minded, materialistic culture as I mourn the seven most essential years of my life. So, I’m praying for extra patience and grace and wisdom in the months and years to come while still praying that I never lose what I’ve learned and what I’ve become.

Until I achieve any level of normalcy, life is not actually immediate for me. It’s going to be a lot of work, a lot of digging and moving past facades. If there’s anything I’ve learnt facades can be good but there is never a façade so established that it is no longer appropriate to challenge it. So today, dear patient and gracious reader, I challenge you to challenge the pieces of your society, culture, government, and even yourself that are not quite as immediate and honest as the red-stained concrete of Kenya that just can’t avoid the mud. Do not be stagnant in your understanding of any aspect of this world. It's easier than you'd think.

To cap this blog post off, I’d like to type up a piece of a prayer/rant I wrote down directed at God one night at camp. This is my prayer for the next couple years, coming directly from the center of my heart (just in case it coming from the center makes it more sincere ).

“God, I want out. Out of the relationships that damage as much as they delight. Out of my doubt in my adequacy when I look in the mirror every morning. Out of my established high school niche. Basically, I want to start afresh and that’s why I’m in utter awe of your sacrifice on the cross because it is not only a call to one-time salvation. Instead, we are called to daily resurrect our walks with Jesus. But right now, I’m not content with something small. My dreams, since being crushed a few months ago, have lain dormant in a corner. So, here it is, on paper and on my heart (and now on my blog). My dream is transformation. Maybe leave me in my cocoon for a month or two but I want to be a butterfly”

So maybe the title of this blog post is misleading. Essentially, I miss how immediate my life used to be when I was a minority but not a stranger. I’m no longer an ethnic minority but I have never felt more like a stranger. Unfortunately, like my good family friend Vince Gill likes to say, “There ain’t no future in the past”. Country music is truth, my friends. It really is. So, I apologize for a misleading title, but I hope you’re as fascinated by my thought process as psychologists will be in a couple of years (Jokes). It’s been an interesting three weeks in this weird, at-times cold, Northern land. God has been faithful. He brought me Molly Jones last weekend and a sense of belonging to a family even while being so far away from my beloved three. She also brought me microwave popcorn and Oreos which heal many wounds. He gave me moments of joy and crazy in ministry at camp with words of wisdom from the young and the less young. He provided moments of painful and great growth which I’m not always grateful for but He doesn’t seem to be concerned with my comfort. Until then I hold on to His promise in Psalm 139 and I urge you, dear fellow tcks, to hang onto the words of Sondheim…

“There’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us

Peace and quiet and open air

Wait for us somewhere”