Africa #2 ~ Ready for Takeoff

I promised to blog all about Africa when I got home but, despite my best intentions, that endeavor failed even to clear preflight diagnostics (like our plane from DC to Johannesburg).  This is how quite a few conversations went soon after I found myself back in our little corner of the US:

Enthusiastic, completely innocent, genuinely interested friend - "How was Africa???"
Me [with astounding eloquence of course] - ... *stares back with open mouth*

First of all, I am so sorry if you were one of the people who have firsthand experience with that conversation.  It's not that there isn't anything to say - quite the opposite!  The problem is, when I consider an open-ended question like "How was Africa?", two months of experiences, thoughts, changes, and emotions try to cram into one coherent idea and... well... they don't fit.

This is my first update after 26 days of being home for the very same reason.  Where to start?  How do I describe two months of God-moments that all worked together to change my life?  Every detail rushes in, the stream too rapid for articulation.  Like our plane to South Africa, my blog updating was grounded because the back-up brakes were not functioning.  If I took off, I ran the risk of being unable to slow my thoughts and would quite possibly crash and burn.  I am daunted by the prospect of attempting to explain supernatural events in human words.  There will indefinitely be an overuse of fairly non-descriptive words such as "awesome", "amazing", and "cool", but I promise to do my best and hope you can manage to bear with me.  After sitting on the plane for at least an hour, it suddenly occurred to us that our God cannot be deterred by a brake malfunction and we prayed that God would fix those back-up brakes, choosing to trust that He had the power and He would do it.  The pilot had been updating us periodically on the situation and it was clear no one knew what was wrong with the back-up brakes.  After we prayed, the pilot came back on the intercom and said, "I'm not sure what happened but, for some reason, the back-up brakes are now working!  Let's go to South Africa!"  I am choosing to trust that my God, who gave me words of Truth and Life to speak to His lost sheep in South Africa and Zambia, will give me the words to speak to you of His glorious works. 

Ready for takeoff. 

 

Our plane to Jo'burg before boarding in D.C.

 

Waiting for the back-up brakes to work so we can take off.

From left: Heidi, me, Elizabeth, Olivia, Mikaela

 

Note: I'm going to start by addressing frequently asked questions.  If you have a question about my time in Africa, drop me a line in the comments and I will gladly answer it to the best of my ability in a blog post.