Scattered Thoughts and Attepts at Clarity

In the last month and half, my life has been all but completely flipped upside down. And with all of the changes, decisions and the roller-coaster of emotions, I have found it most impossible to write or communicate the fullness of these moments.

I have been on the go…
It all started with that now infamous night. A night of walking through the dark Sudanese bush to the safety of an airplane that swept me away from my home and so called stability. A long month was spent in Tanzania, waiting for direction from our Lord. Word came, filling us all with great sadness and the peace that does transcend understanding. A debrief in Kenya’s beautiful Rift Valley helped me to realize just how much I love and will dearly miss the support, shared experiences and friendship of my Didinga TIMO family. Then, after two brief days in Nairobi,I traveled to Northern Kenya with nothing more than the clothes on my back, a toothbrush and passport. One short night, turned into many as I waited in the oppressing Lokichoiggo heat for the muddy Didinga airstrip to dry. And yesterday, I finally flew back to the Hills, back to my home, back to it all for the very last time.

I was totally exhausted in the days leading up to the final trip back into Didinga. Too many transitions, too much to consider. Formal goodbyes are most defiantly not my thing, yet I was pulled back to Sudan. Marta’s actions and her participation in the mob that harassed, accused and threatened our group had left my heart messy, but I wanted it straightened.

I walked down the trail from the airstrip, while Marta ran up the path to meet the plane. The children pointed and told me she was coming. Marta greeted me in that yellow Didinga dress, with her wide smile and open arms, yelling my name again and again, “Kiiimmie, Kiiimmie!!!” The tears that had escaped me for weeks began to stream down my face. Embarrassed by my open display of emotions, but unable to hide them, I hid my face on her shoulder. Some of the children who had gathered, laughed with uneasiness at my unDidinga-like tears, but Marta just held me and said one time after another that she was sorry.

Explaining our time in Didinga was never going to be easy. Even here, amongst other missionaries, those serving in their own areas of Africa, I shy away from details. I am easily frustrated by an incomplete account and yet stutter my way through God’s story in those Hills. It is impossible to describe those Didinga moments. Hours spent beside Marta, Pia, and Nadai, all of us bent at the waist, weeding and moving up a mountainside cornfield in unison. Baby Thabon. Afternoons beside Witchdoctor Regina, our arms intertwined, our legs leaning one upon the other, laughing like junior high girls about the opposite sex. Moments of oneness, moments of closeness.