I'm home from Africa. Leaving was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I fell in love with it and would have stayed longer had I been able to. The day we left broke my heart. It was so hard to say goodbye to all of the amazing people that I met while I was there. Driving to the airport and looking out the window of the car at my last glimpses of Mozambique was a strange feeling. After spending a month there, walking and living along side them, laughing with them, dancing with them, crying with them, singing with them, praying with them, and even mourning with them, I was going home. It was hard to think that as I passed by their little huts and homes, and watched from a car window as they walked along the muddy streets, that this would go on. That life for them would continue and I would go home. To my family, my mother my father, and my siblings. All healthy, happy, and alive. To my home, where my bedroom alone could fit their whole house. To school, to finish up my junior year.. I met 34 year old who were in 10th grade.. who worked to feed 4 kids and then rode a bike for an hour to go to school till 11:30 at night. In some ways it just seems so unfair. It's easy to feel guilty about how much I've taken for granted in the past.
Africa taught me a lot, and one of those things was that we can be so ungrateful for what we have. Spending time with people that have so little makes you start thinking and viewing things differently. When we landed in South Africa I cried to see the fancy airport and the stores, all filled with stuff that seemed so unnecessary. When I walked in my house and saw the beautiful flowers my family had bought me my first thought was that so many of the girls I had met probably never had anyone buy them flowers. Or when I heard my little brother and sister fighting in the car I couldn't help but think how ridicules they were being to make a big deal out of something so small. I feel as though I see the world through a new lens now and I'm thankful for it. I have a new perspective. I realize how much I have to be thankful for and how much I have to give to those who don't. It showed me how selfish I can be with what is not my own to begin with. It also showed me that joy doesn't have to be determined by our circumstances, and what it looked like to truly have nothing but your faith in Jesus getting you through. My trip may be over, but in a way I think a lot has just begun. I want to share what I saw with others and I want to go back. One thing that several of the people I met, Nelsa, Maria, Fernando, Afonzo, Rosi, Simone, Vicente, Ercilio.. to name a few, told us was to remember them when we went home. I smile when I think of that. I don't think that I could ever forget them.
