Leaving Home to Reach Home

(Hidden Notes From an Old Shipping Trunk)

It is a strange feeling. On one hand there is the sadness of leaving home, leaving children, and grandchildren, longtime friends, church family, leaving business associates and medical professionals who have shared your days for years. On the other hand there is the excitement of reaching home, arriving where grown men and women consider you their “mama” and “papa”, where orphan children run to greet you, knowing their next meal comes from the resources you bring to the table, and where the sick and handicapped understand their hospitals have medical supplies because of whom your represent.

On this trip from home to home our Delta flight leaves Indianapolis in the pre-dawn darkness. On the way to Atlanta and our jumping off point for the Atlantic crossing, I see clusters of twinkling lights from countless cities, through cloudless skies. It brings a deep feeling of loneliness for I realize it will be many months before I see such a scene again. My “other home”, the one I am going to, will often be without lights. The weakness of the electrical infrastructure makes it one of the darkest areas on the planet. The roads will be pothole filled, and the big trucks will nearly bump you off the road as they pass. The water will have to be boiled or purchased from a water source in the capital. And speaking of the capital, the streets of old town will resonate with the sounds of old Africa, and you will feel you have left this world for another. It is so strange. One house rests nicely in the affluence of the first world. It offers almost every convenience an upper middle class mind can imagine. The second house overlooks poverty that cannot even be imagined by the poor neighborhoods in America. Yet the second house is in no way second to the first. What makes them so equal, when all of the surroundings cry deep contrast? It can’t be the conveniences that make the second as special as the first. It has to be something else. But what can offset the threat of malaria-laden mosquitoes that search for entrance into our Malawi house? Or what is it that can be so special that it will compel one to share a hillside with one or more resident mamba snakes that think the hill belongs to them? And what human desire will compel the discomfort and inconvenience of electrical outages, phone disruptions, and water shortages? What is it that can possibly compel one to return each time in spite of vehicle breakdowns, the lack of food choices, and the absence of all of the niceties that come with a home in the first world?

There are Two Possibilities

It can only be two things that make the trip mandatory? One is the deep and abiding love for a people who cannot speak our language, understand our culture, or manage our technologically advanced devices. Yet they are a people who understand villages, home and family. There is a whole lot to be said for a culture that does not understand “things”, but does fully understand the value in relationships.

The other reason for the compulsion must be imbedded in the intense human need to make a difference in this world, to make it a better place, to introduce people to the plan and purpose of the Messiah. It is a need that is rooted in the desire to help them understand the beauty of the church, as well as its universal importance to all mankind.

The Reasons We Leave Home

These two reasons appear to pinnacle any others that might be considered. These are definitely the reasons we continue to make the trip. They are why we leave home in the convenience of the first world setting, in order to arrive home in a place where few have heard its name, and even fewer have traveled its ancient roads. There can be no other explanation.