After spending so much time just living out of one bag I feel like my room is so cluttered. There's so little space... It's odd coming from rooms with barely anything in them to coming back to my room of 19 years, where there is memorabilia of my life everywhere. This room is so close to my heart. This house is so dear to me. And yet... it feels almost wrong to be here now. I'm not working anymore. I can't walk to the office. I'm in America now.
It is nice to be home, yes, but I'm going to be a little cliched and say, if home is where the heart is, I think my real home is in Africa now. I know it is early in my life to say where I think I'll be in ten years, but it feels so right doing that. Of course, it also felt so right working at the Bowery a couple years ago and working at the Hispanic Day Camps over the years. Working for God, whatever I do, always feels like the right thing to do. I never have the same feeling when I'm doing other types of work. It's the feeling you get when everything in your world lines up and you KNOW you're doing something that God wants you to do. I do believe that everything you do is what God has planned for you and everything should be done for His glory, but doing something like this versus studying... It's not the same.
I don't want anyone to think now that I've come home I've forgotten the challenges I faced and that I did feel like the work I was doing wasn't good enough. I remember it. I wrote it all here, after all, so others could read it. I'm not romanticizing the time I had there. And it's not really that I loved the work so much I just have to go back and do some more. It's that I loved the people and the life and doing work for God that has a much greater impact than something I could do here. What is getting a college degree when you could be out in the world, helping people? It is the smart thing to do, is what, and it allows you to help more people in a better way in the end. At least, that is what I have to keep telling myself so I do not drop out and run off to India. Or Africa. Or Guatemala. Or anywhere that is not America or Canada. It just makes me so mad, so FRUSTRATED! that in the 6 weeks I was in Cameroon I did more for the furthering of God's kingdom than in the eight months I was at Tyndale. Or the 18 years I was in Georgia. And now you are thinking, "then get involved! Do things for the community. That is a mission field in and of itself." And it is. I do believe that. I also believe it is not my work.
Tyndale has lots of outreach opportunities. But nothing pulls on my heartstrings and makes me want to DO something like going to Africa did. Or the Bowery or Day Camps did. I sincerely applaud everyone who has a heart for their own community, I just feel like I am being pulled towards a different one. A people not my own, but who will be my own. If God has truly blessed me with a gift in languages then how could I possibly be meant to stay in America and Canada, the most uni-lingual countries on this whole planet?
I hope this explains a little how I am feeling right now. It is a little jumbled, but it is what is on my heart right now. I am specifically missing the Cameroonians and being in Africa, but I am also missing doing God's work! No matter what my parents may say, cleaning my room does not impact the future of God's kingdom. But that's about all I can do right now. I still have a few chapters to edit in Pinyin, and unlike when I was in Cameroon, I'm looking forward to doing that because it will feel like I am back in Cameroon.
Please keep praying for me. I'll probably put up a few more posts, but the time to write in my blog is winding down. I still have to post pictures, of course, and I still have a few more stories to tell about my time there, but by September, finished or not with my Cameroon remembrances, I'm going to have to stop because I'll be going back to school. School... and Canada.... I'm definitely going to need your prayers in the coming weeks.
It is nice to be home, yes, but I'm going to be a little cliched and say, if home is where the heart is, I think my real home is in Africa now. I know it is early in my life to say where I think I'll be in ten years, but it feels so right doing that. Of course, it also felt so right working at the Bowery a couple years ago and working at the Hispanic Day Camps over the years. Working for God, whatever I do, always feels like the right thing to do. I never have the same feeling when I'm doing other types of work. It's the feeling you get when everything in your world lines up and you KNOW you're doing something that God wants you to do. I do believe that everything you do is what God has planned for you and everything should be done for His glory, but doing something like this versus studying... It's not the same.
I don't want anyone to think now that I've come home I've forgotten the challenges I faced and that I did feel like the work I was doing wasn't good enough. I remember it. I wrote it all here, after all, so others could read it. I'm not romanticizing the time I had there. And it's not really that I loved the work so much I just have to go back and do some more. It's that I loved the people and the life and doing work for God that has a much greater impact than something I could do here. What is getting a college degree when you could be out in the world, helping people? It is the smart thing to do, is what, and it allows you to help more people in a better way in the end. At least, that is what I have to keep telling myself so I do not drop out and run off to India. Or Africa. Or Guatemala. Or anywhere that is not America or Canada. It just makes me so mad, so FRUSTRATED! that in the 6 weeks I was in Cameroon I did more for the furthering of God's kingdom than in the eight months I was at Tyndale. Or the 18 years I was in Georgia. And now you are thinking, "then get involved! Do things for the community. That is a mission field in and of itself." And it is. I do believe that. I also believe it is not my work.
Tyndale has lots of outreach opportunities. But nothing pulls on my heartstrings and makes me want to DO something like going to Africa did. Or the Bowery or Day Camps did. I sincerely applaud everyone who has a heart for their own community, I just feel like I am being pulled towards a different one. A people not my own, but who will be my own. If God has truly blessed me with a gift in languages then how could I possibly be meant to stay in America and Canada, the most uni-lingual countries on this whole planet?
I hope this explains a little how I am feeling right now. It is a little jumbled, but it is what is on my heart right now. I am specifically missing the Cameroonians and being in Africa, but I am also missing doing God's work! No matter what my parents may say, cleaning my room does not impact the future of God's kingdom. But that's about all I can do right now. I still have a few chapters to edit in Pinyin, and unlike when I was in Cameroon, I'm looking forward to doing that because it will feel like I am back in Cameroon.
Please keep praying for me. I'll probably put up a few more posts, but the time to write in my blog is winding down. I still have to post pictures, of course, and I still have a few more stories to tell about my time there, but by September, finished or not with my Cameroon remembrances, I'm going to have to stop because I'll be going back to school. School... and Canada.... I'm definitely going to need your prayers in the coming weeks.
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