So today was SUCH a great day. My missions team had a meeting with New Hope. It was a great meeting and then we had lunch with Nathan and Maria. I loved seeing my YWAM friends talking and laughing with M'boro friends. Honestly, what I enjoyed the best was the simple fact that we are actually doing something besides sitting around the office. I am used to being like ten steps into a project by now, but since I am not the head leader, I have to wait and wait and wait on the leadership. So anyways, seeing TN friends was the "home again" part.
When we got back to the base, my small group leader took me and another girl out for dinner. We had a great time talking, but at the end of the meal, my leader received a call from her babysitter. There was a really bad wreck at the end of our street and she wanted to make sure we were okay. The babysitter also said she had yet to get a hold of my leader's husband. I have to say my leader held herself together for while really well, but by the time we got to the base and she saw the cop cars and the road blocked off, she started to visibly worry. We walked with her down to the wreck site to make sure it was not her husband. It wasn't. But it was so emotional, all of us were shedding tears at some point. By the time we walked back to her house on the base and saw her kids come running into her arms and her husband standing on the sidewalk with the baby in the stroller, something had changed inside me.
Since I returned here in April, I have always felt like I am supposed to be here. But tonight I really felt that I was a part of something. Standing outside the base with Anita and her family laughing and watching Anita wrap her arms around her husband. My roommates stopping and chatting as they are walking in from the parking lot. Anita sister, Rebecca, hollering from her front door for her husband, Dan to come inside and help her put their kids to bed. Rebecca's one-year-old yelling "Anty Tita!" and Anita running over and scooping him up. And all of a sudden it rushed over me. The beauty of the place were I live. The community and family atmosphere of it all. 14 other crazy single young adults living in bunk beds in an old church and right outside our front door, two homes filled with two amazing families. I am blessed to be here. I am lucky to be a part of their lives. I already have so many people in my life that I love and cherish more than I can express, so for that circle to grow again, I am amazed. Humbled. Excited. Rich.
Thank you Lord. You are too good to this selfish, self-righteous child.