HOME FOR NOW.

Well, I am home in the states for now.  My flight home was surprisingly effortless. I guess I am getting used to the long flights. I even slept, which was unheard of for me.  But one reason it was easy and pleasant, was flying out with one of the volunteers, who was very special to me.  She has been so great to get to know in her 6 months at Lily.  We ended up having similar flight itineraries, so we flew from Durban at nearly the same time and met up in Jo-berg for a few hours.  We talked and talked, at the end of our Lily Journey together (for the time being). 

We even had a similar layover in London, but didn't quite make the connection with each other.  The photo shows us in Jo-berg together. 

Back to New York City! BAM! The crazy rich, intense life! My first week back was quite hard.  I realized how exhausted, especially emotionally, I was from everything.  Culture shock hit me pretty hard, confusion of life, painful guy things, etc.   I was sick the first week and was surprised at how much I couldn't handle big social things.  But I was welcomed home by some great friends.  I was back to the city I love, as well. Even had a long awaited "10pm Astoria Park Frisbee Throw" with my frisbee buddy, under the lights of the Triboro Bridge. 

Then, the next week, I flew out to Southern California, and have been here visiting my sister and her kids. This has involved well-off suburban American life.  Blond Soccer Moms and soccer games, car-pooling school kids around, cooking for hungry teenagers, mass-quantity grocery shopping, and going to bed at 9:30pm.  But I just LOVE my niece and nephew who are teenagers now.  Last night I even had a moment with my niece, thinking to myself while we talked, 'she is not just my niece whom I need to love, but a she is going to be a good friend in my life'. 

The Hearts of the Kids.

The hearts of our kids have been growing in Christ so much and their desire to reach out to the poor is crazy! Orphans reaching out to broken communities! God's work has been amazing in the last year! The kids have been on break from school and one of the activities they did was to visit a very poor village. The councilman gave the kids a tour and showed us what the needs of that community were. There was no running water in the village, and the water truck came while we were here for the families to do the daily water collection. Disease was rampant and kids ran the streets everywhere, but had little food. The homes were small rickety structures that barely stood on their own.
It was a great experience for our teenagers to get a reality check and a perspective check on their lives. And to realize how much they do have at the orphanage. This was a "vision visit", and many of our teenagers were able to think of some things that they could do to help the community. The plan is to come back fairly regularly to help with different things.

Easter has been really meaningful this year for me. I have been away from all the usual services and rituals, but I was at the orphanage on Good Friday and the kids had a time of carrying a big cross, remembering different stages of what Christ went through as he carried it along to his death. Somehow it was just extra meaningful to me, as I feel like I have to carry a heavy load in my life at this time. It was encouraging to me.

Now I am back in NYC for break from the "front lines".