Hello there, friends! So sorry it has been months since I last blogged. While in Africa, my entire blog switched over to another language so I was just slightly unable to read it and figure out how to create a new blog so that left me with months of not being able to blog and leaves me here with months to catch up on! Okay, so right now, I'm not going to catch you up on all the things that went on in Rwanda this summer, I'll leave that for another day. But what I am going to do is write about what has been on my heart here lately.
So, leaving my home in Rwanda and coming back to my home in America was the biggest and most difficult adjustment I have ever had to go through. On past mission trips, yes, it's been difficult coming back home. But this year, it was 100 times worse. I was in absolutely no way ready to come home and if it wasn't for my shop here, I would have easily and very quickly cancelled my return flight and just stayed in Rwanda for sometime longer. Leaving my babes in Rwanda was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Walking to the plane in Rwanda, taking in my last few breaths of African air, I felt like I weighed 10,000 pounds and it was all I could do to keep placing one foot in front of the other while just praying, "God help me!" And choking back so many tears. It was so painful. My heart was broken. It hurt to leave my babes that I had grown so close to over the past few months. Leaving the ones that would run full force and tackle me in a huge bear hug with lots and lots of kisses. To leave the ones that I would just hold as they were so pitifully sick. The ones that would dose off and on during school cause they were so hungry and weak and had no more strength and energy to keep listening. To leave the ones I held that were so wet from walking to school in the pouring rain and having to sit in a cold, dirt floor, church as they shivered in my lap. It hurt leaving the ones that I had held hands with as we ran through the fields laughing and singing and just being oh so silly. Oh how painful it was to come back to America. It meant nothing to me to come back and know that I was going to have a meal that night, plus, an American meal at that. It was so weird. I was honestly like, "Hmm...Where's my beans and rice? I just want my beans and rice." It meant nothing to me to know that I was going to have water to take a shower with that night. And hot, constant running water. It meant nothing to me to know that I would have electricity constantly. It meant absolutely nothing to me to sleep in my own bed. It meant nothing to me to know that I would not be swatting at mosquitoes all night only to wake up with little bites all over my face. You see, a simple meal of beans and rice, a lot of the time no water, no electricity, constant mosquitoes, etc had become all part of life and home. I can't go somewhere here for a week without getting homesick and ready for my own shower and my own bed. But over there, I was just so thankful to have a bed and to have a bit of water that it gave me a total different perspective on things. I was so focused on the Lord and what He was doing, on dying to myself more and more each day, that I wasn't focused on things that would make me comfortable. And coming back, I was so sensitive to things. For example, the day after I got back, daddy asked me about me going ahead and getting a new car. Cause mine is having some problems. I pretty much went up to my room and had a complete meltdown. A new car?! Are you kidding me! I just left my starving babes in Rwanda...A new car is the last thing I want to think about. My mama and I had been planning on going and getting a pedicure together when I get back so of course, she asked me that a few days after I get back... I was honestly like, " I can't do it." I can't do it. Of course, now, I have gotten better about those things. I mean, really, want girl doesn't want a pedicure!? At the time, that was the last thing I wanted to think about. It was just things like that, that had become so unimportant to me. And I was so sensitive to certain things. Things that a part of me says, "Seriously Emily. Get over it!" But another part of me says, "Emily, don't settle. Don't allow yourself to be "comfortable!"
And this, my friends, is the point of this particular blog tonight. I am so scared that I am going to slip back into my normal, comfortable way of the American life. I had a friend that came in my shop last week and I was telling him how hard of a time I had been having adjusting back and he said, "Well I hope you adjust back soon...Actually, I hope you don't adjust back to the normal way of life here." And that hit me so hard. I thought, You know what? I don't ever want to adjust back to the "normal, american, comfortable lifestyle." If the Lord calls me to Rwanda for a longer period of time, I do not want to settle so much for this simple life here that I ignore His calling for me to go there. That, my friends, is what scares me so bad. I don't ever want to settle for a comforable, "Perfect, American dream, life." But I am also willing to stay here if that is His will and allow Him to place me even outside of my comfort zone here. I am praying, praying, praying and allowing His will to be done in my life. I am praying that He will show me so clearly exactly what it is He wants me to do. But no matter where I'm at, I will serve Him.
Wherever He leads, I'll go
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