Now That I Have Seen: I Left My Heart in Nsoko

Home. I'm back home on America soil, yet my heart is still in Nsoko which has been my home for the past two months. Will I ever feel completely at home here again? I don't know. Will my heart ever be completely whole again? Doubtful. How do you tell people that have become your family goodbye that you may never see again? I may not get to go back to Nsoko. And if I do, there's a very high chance that some of the people I was closest to won't be there anymore whether it's from AIDS, TB, or any other countless disease. I have to say, a lot of tears on my part were involved.
I remember the day God broke my heart. It was weird the whole trip because I never really cried even with all the heartache around me. I teared up a few times, but that was it. Well, 4 days before we left, the floodgates opened. My ministry team and I had been visiting a woman, Pauline, and her 3 or 4 year old grandson, Wiseman, a few times during the last month or so. This woman has the most joy I've ever seen. It's incredibly beautiful. We had been playing worship songs at church and we sang I'll Fly Away and she told us how much she enjoyed us singing. We decided to go back and play music for her... her own personal, private concert. So Austin, Anna, and I went and we took along Becca and the guitar. The first song we sang was More Than Life and as we were singing, Pauline was crying. When we were done with the song, Pauline told us, via our translator Thandie, that she was so sad we were leaving. We're the only people that ever come to visit her and invest in her. She knows people in the community, but no one ever comes to visit her and spend time with her. What's going to happen to her spirit now that we're gone? Is God going to send someone her way to invest time with her? We continued singing after we spoke a few words of encouragement. I looked around. Pauline was still crying. Thandie was crying... they were not only our translators, but our family. The dam broke and I cried. I can handle my pain and my sadness, but knowing the affect our departure was going to have on the Swazi people was what I couldn't take. We get to come back to America with our families and friends and continue our life. These people don't have that. When we left, they had to go back to their old lives, with the same people, the same heartache, and the same pain. And they were sad to see us go. Our leaving affected them just as much as it did us, if not more. As we were singing, we all sobbed. We were all heartbroken. When we finished the last song, we talked to Pauline and Thandie translated for us. A few sentenced were spoken and as Thandie was trying to translate she had to stop because she couldn't speak. She was weeping. I went to sit next to Pauline and Anna and I prayed for her as Austin and Becca prayed for Thandie. That was hands down the most intense worship session ever. And I was broken. There were many, many more tears the next 4 days, especially the day we left, but I'll save that for another post.
I miss everything about Nsoko and I don't know if I'll ever be able to heal completely. I miss my two girls, Colile and Phetsile. I miss constantly having kids around. I miss kids sitting on my lap until I couldn't feel my butt anymore. I miss the thorns even though they killed my feet. I miss not showering for 14 days and not being judged. I miss worshiping with my team. I miss sitting outside with Becca while she sang... just me, her, and God. I miss blowing up Axe bottles and bug spray cans in our fire pit. I miss the landscape of Nsoko and the lack of color. There's too much color here in America when they don't have any. I miss sitting with Bongiwe and holding her hand. I miss watching net ball and soccer with the Swazis. I even miss being sick. And all my little wormy friends living inside me. I miss walking to the little store with my team and some kids, buying them soda and seeing the joy on their faces as they drank it. I miss walking to the train tracks with Becca to go spend quiet time with God. I miss smashing coins and bottle caps at the tracks. I miss making balloon animals (yes, I went to Africa and learned how to make balloon animals). I miss having dirty feet. I miss all 17 of us squeezing into our kombi, aka van. I could go on and on. I miss everything, good and bad.

Pauline, Wiseman, Anna, and I the day we left Nsoko