I realized some of Africa's struggles and potential during the Critical Issues Symposium during my freshman year at Hope (fire up Dutch!). Through a commercial on the radio and a couple random meetings I went on a 3 week trip during August 2007 to the coastal village of Vilanculous, Mozambique where we assisted a family of missionaries in distributing talking Bibles in the Xitswa language and in clothing distributions at schools. During this trip I absolutely fell in love with Mozambique. Africa was now running through my veins and there was nothing I could do about it!
Working at Camp Geneva during summer 2008 made me realize how much I love doing things with people and serving. I also realized how much I didn't necessarily want to spend the rest of my life in a lab! I began to look into other options where I could use my education from Hope and combine it with people and service. A lot of random conversations, including one with our spring break bus driver, led me to Vox United. I became a part of their water team and helped plan 3 trips to the Mozambican bush. These trips were specifically focused on addressing the drinking water crisis by drilling wells, implementing bio-sand filtration systems and teaching health and hygiene to a select few communities near Balama, Mozambique. My understanding of the profound need for clean water all across the world grew deeper, as did my passion for it. I found myself back in Mozambique in July 2009 teaching a health and hygiene seminar (wash your hands and use the latrine) to 40 pastors.
I felt God pushing me towards an extended trip to Africa but also to graduate school for public health and this growing water crisis. I searched for a way to spend this year serving in Africa but wanted to do so in a bigger city. Not that the bush wasn't great and I didn't love the people but the worry about the black Mambas at night, no running water, no showers and no outside contact calls for a much more dedicated and courageous person than myself! More random (I'm sensing a theme of situations that don't make a bunch of sense but work out in the end) emails, phone calls and Starbucks meetings and prayer led me to Cois in Cape Town, its AIDS orphans and the upcoming 5 months of my life! It was a long and, at times, frustrating process but God has placed a passion in my heart for southern Africa and I'm doing my best to be patient and let Him work.
I love Africa but have a hard time putting the reasons into words. It is a place full of community, love, hardship, suffering and potential. There are a lot of problems there that are huge! But it is exciting for me to be part of something bigger than myself. I'm not trying to be a hero and save the world; I'm trying to do the little bit that I can. I know it is not for everyone and there's a list a mile long of problems in the States but, right now, I'm being pulled to South Africa. I have great expectations and excitement for what's in store for me. I'm hoping to touch the lives of a couple kids who can then impact their communities once I'm gone but I also know these kids are going to impact my life in huge and unknown ways and I can't wait for all of this to happen! What a blessing it is to have this opportunity!
Alexander McCall Smith and St. Theresa may communicate where my heart's at much better than I can:
It's not an easy place
But perhaps that is the attraction
It's rawness touches a nerve
Many who spend time in Africa
Are spiritually captivated by it...
And are themselves reborn
Leaving the soft drizzle and gentle light of the
Northern hemisphere. They walk into a technicolor
dreamscape and never leave
Or else they go back to it
Whenever, and as often as they can.
~Alexander McCall Smith
Christ has no body on earth but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ's
Compassion for the world is to look out;
Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good;
And yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.
~Saint Theresa of Avila
But perhaps that is the attraction
It's rawness touches a nerve
Many who spend time in Africa
Are spiritually captivated by it...
And are themselves reborn
Leaving the soft drizzle and gentle light of the
Northern hemisphere. They walk into a technicolor
dreamscape and never leave
Or else they go back to it
Whenever, and as often as they can.
~Alexander McCall Smith
Christ has no body on earth but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ's
Compassion for the world is to look out;
Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good;
And yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.
~Saint Theresa of Avila
