This time last year I was stuck in Atlanta hoping with all hope that I’d be joining the team I was traveling with to Uganda on a storytelling trip with Sole Hope. Remember that? I had passport issues and ended up watching the team leave me there all by myself in the Hartsfield International Airport. And the 24 hours that followed had us all (myself included) on the edge of our seats while I was just waiting and wondering if I’d get to hop the pond or not?!
Would the Red Sea part and I’d cross the vast waters, or would I be driving the 3 hours back up interstate 85 with all my dreams sitting broken in the front seat beside of me?
I think we know how that story ended.
I wrote a handful of posts while I was there, and I still go back and read them from time to time. Stories about being available when God calls and finding my religion in a place that could have made me lose it. Uganda reminded me that some things are so clear we hardly have to think before we act , and how even when we are coming home, we can often feel so far away.
It was a journey that wrecked me and softened me and opened my eyes to Africa and to the world at large in new ways. And ever since I left last year, I’ve been planning on returning…today in fact.
I meant to be returning today.
But life has a way of throwing curve balls. And so a trip that I helped put together and was meant to be leading, turned out to be one that it didn’t seem the Lord may have had in the cards for me afterall.
So today I sit in a mostly unpacked office in a new house, working to get our life pieced back together after a whirlwind move, and trying to still homeschool my kids, and write a book. Today doesn’t look like I thought, and so instead of hopping a plane, I’m sitting here praying hard for my friends who are hopping that pond without me this time.
This time there won’t be waiting and wondering if I’ll be right behind them in person…because my place for right now is here with my family. Sometimes we have to end up saying no to adventures and life-changers that we are even a part of planning, because the people under our roof need us more than the people elsewhere. This home here…it’s where my people are, and if I can’t help them take care of the stories they are living when they need me most, then I don’t figure that I have any business telling stories of others much anyhow.
So while I’m just itching to be with this group of storytellers today, I know I’m right where I need to be now.
But I’ll be cheering, and sharing, and following along…because I KNOW that these world-changers and grace-chasers are absolutely worth following along this coming week (and in general for that matter)! If you want to read more about them, click HERE for their quick bios on Sole Hope’s site. I’ve listed below links to their individual sites so that you can follow along each of their adventures as they begin a journey that holds redemption and restoration and invites us into it with them!!
For more information on how YOU can get involved with Sole Hope, visit www.solehope.org. They are incredible people, serving in the most tangible ways, and loving others well in Uganda! Host a shoe party, help them open a new clinic to serve the overwhelming need for freedom from foot related disease in Uganda, serve as an advocate, just get involved! And enjoy this week as this incredible group of people share stories live from Africa!
Praying with you today for the team and for you as you remain home to follow a different path. Praying for the windows of heaven to open for you here in the cyber connection to feel the freshness of the “unplugged”. I work on a campus where my phone doesn’t work and I am loving the gift of being unplugged to see God’s daily miracle in students and staff. I’m feeling a blog post coming on… but for now resting in the “unplugged” for the rest of my day.
Shalom from north California