a short story.

A man without sight, was wandering across a flat and empty plain, when a wind that felt like hands or perhaps hands that felt like wind began to blow from behind. It blew him until he found himself, through the aquaintance of his hands, between the hands and wind and a wall. To what could he compare it? He could not walk forward or backwards on it. His hands could not scale the height in front of him.

"Here," spoke the wind, and when the words hit his ears, the were a memory not yet spent.

"Here?" asked the man.

The man reached his fingertips up the wall, standing on the balls of his feet until he no longer could. His arms ached and his feet could not bear his own weight.

He fell back on his heels, "What am I to make of this?"

He walked from right to left until he grew weary. He walked from left to right twice that distance, all the while dragging his fingers along,one at a time,for measure. When a finger grew raw and burned from the length of the wall, he would move on to the next finger, until all ten lay at his sides less useful and less telling than before. (Unless,of course, they were more telling and useful than before.) All the while, the wind spoke, "Here."

He leaned his back against the wall, but the wind blew. It blew no more or less than before, and no more hot or cold than before. It showed no signs of increasing or retiring. He thought it unbearable.

He turned again to the wall, unable to perceive it and unable to dismiss it.

"I cannot," said the man.

All the while, the wind spoke, "Here."

"How?" said the man. The wind spoke, "Here."


The man, begging the wind to cease, lay his face against the wall. It was grand and immovable. It horrified him.

"Oh, if only you could open for me!" cried the man,

"I could," came a reply, and the wind quieted as it blew.

"If only you would open for me!"

"I would," he was answered.

"If you will, open for me," asked the man.

"I will," was the response.

He heard stones begin to shift. It sounded as if the very wall itself was crumbling. The wind pressed him closer still. Stone after stone fell upon the man, as that very wall covered every part of him, until he could no longer move.

Then, stone after stone lifted and formed a footpath before him.

And the wind whispered, "Here," while the footpath whispered, "I have."

The man stood. He walked on the wall he loved, into the wall he loved, and the wind pressed him in, and he loved the wind for it.

As he walked, the wall was lit with every true brightness that cannot be toucheed with hands. It was so bright and high that it made him very faint and dizzy.


The wind began to blow him back over the path. It blew him onto the plain, so that his hands might be put to good use. And the wind that blew into the wall would not leave the man. I feel certain that this same wind will blow that man back to the wall, to the footpath, and its bright rest.

...Like the First Morning

Every day, I take a train from a stop near my house to my job downtown. I get the idea from most of the people that come in the shop that taking a train is not the usual first choice of transportation. I'm not sure if it's because I just moved here, or if it's in my make up, but I love the train. In the small town I lived in until I was eight and where I afterwards returned weekly to visit my Dad, there is a train that does a thorough job of blocking traffic by crossing for long periods of time the one road out of town. It was often the cause of tardiness to school, or a late dinner. But, it became a familiarity, which like a habit, brings comfort and attraction.There was always a disappointment in the fact that there were solely freight trains running through.

When I work in the mornings, I leave my house at 5:15 a.m. to take the 5:30 a.m. train. I enjoy the 25 minutes it takes me to get into the busy city. I love the early morning walk a few blocks to work. I enjoy people watching and being still, listening to a Ferguson sermon, or reading. I love the fact that I ride the same track everyday. It's allows me to feel aquainted with this city, being able to look around- not just ahead, to recognize, to be familiar with a place, as if its mine. In studying the ride in, day after day, I have found my favorite part of the trip. About half-way through, the train crosses the Steel Bridge over the Willamette River. This is a beneficial height for viewing both sides of the city at any time of the day. However, there is a still to the early morning that takes up every bit of my mind. The train is loud over the tracks. Everyone is still waking up and quiet and usually alone, and the sun is rising. As soon as I get on the train in the morning, I try to find a seat facing the back because I know it will be facing the sunrise as I go over the bridge. It is to the right that the sun rises, and it is from that direction that the clouds turn a peculiar shade of pink many mornings. Even on the cloudiest mornings, it is from that direction that the light creeps up on the darkness. Every morning that I wake up, I feel a heaviness of anxiety on my chest and my mind. I keep thinking I will wake up one morning with it gone. Within the past few years, there have been only enough mornings free from this to count on a hand. So, rather than despising this heaviness, I have begun to find gladness in the fact that as sure as I wake with this, a little time remembering Christ...mostly knowing I'm remembered by Christ, steals the anxiety away, and turns it into another day's worth of restoration with God.

In light of this, I have felt such an assurance in this sunrise. I've felt many a quiet, lonely morning the Lord asking me to remember him as Creator, and to look around and see his way is faithfulness, steadiness, beauty, and return. The clouds that the light rises upon take on the the pink and orange, telling of the sun before it reaches the high skies I can see. Just by glancing to my right, I meet mercy. In contrast, out of the left side of the train is a building that still baffles me. I have no idea what company it belongs to. It is right on the water, high and and cement, and in front of it (because I assume they belong to it) is a stream of connected trailors that are on crooked-leg-like stilts, dirty and steel and haunting. They look like something out of a nightmare. They are as high as the building and they seem top heavy. There is a little ladder up the side that crooks back and forth with the legs, and I fret over the man who has to climb it, and wonder if they were built for a man to climb or solely as a fright of an eye sore. The other morning, as the train was heading up the bridge, they caught my eye with all of these thoughts crossing my mind. I could not take my eyes off of these skyscraping trailors. As I was heading down the bridge, I was still left trying to figure out this painful view. It was at this point that I decided to turn to the sunrise, but because the morning was so early, and I had descended from my usual look-out point, I could not see the sun. I knew it was there, and that it was on it's way out, and that the following morning I could look to the right of the train and see it as surely as it was there unseen by me that morning. But, it hurt me that I'd missed it. I rode the train in, thinking, "Isn't that just like me? Looking in on the dark and painful, when hope is right in front of my face? Seeing what is tragic and evokes an emotion that is cheap? Isn't that just my tendancy?" The truth is, it is. Still, I found grace in the fact that the sun rose that morning, not because I saw it, but because it is the sun.

I got off the train at my stop, and began walking the blocks to work. As i turned the corner, I was caught off guard by a high rise office building, covered with rectangular windows. In their height, the individual windows reflected a hundred times over the sunrise I had missed. And I thought to myself, "Isn't that just like the Lord? If it were up to me to judge myself, I would be waiting until morning, but instead the Lord restores all we have broken and all that is broken in us a hundred times over." My mind was not meant to imagine the depths of God's grace, but to live in it and rest in it and know it.

diving from planes.

Today, I was reading and writing in a cafe that I've started spending a lot of my time in. This woman was sitting by me at the window bar, and she started talking to me. We began discussing how beautiful the sky was and how nice and quiet it was in here. Yet, as I told her about myself, somehow it became a conversation about life and fear. I told her about Rwanda and moving here to Portland, how I was afraid, how I was afraid for my family, but how I knew it was what God would have me do. I told her how in Rwanda, I was met with my three greatest tangible fears: heights, spiders, and blood. However, I conveyed to her how sweetly God had done so many beautiful reparations to fear-torn parts of my soul in the midst of these. After this, she began to talk to me about how she'd been struggling with fear in her life.

She told me recently that she went skydiving because it was something she'd always been afraid of and wanted to overcome. She said she just knew she had to do it. She wanted a physical representation of not being controlled by her fears.

She said she had 15 minutes of instructions, and the most important part was to spread your arms and expose your chest, as she put it "heart first." That is how it is best to fall, and what a succesful trip entails. After the instructions she had to fill out paperwork releasing her life in case of injury, or even death. She also had to sign away her son to a guardian, in the event of her death. She said she really had to think about these things. After she had signed herself away, she then had to wait four hours. Four hours of cyclical thinking. Should she go through with this or no? Then, when it became time for the jump, she was strapped in front of her guide. She said she'd thought she would be able to hide behind him. Not the case. When she finally jumped, she said she began scrambling. Finally she remembered what she was to be doing. She spread her arms, letting her whole body lay bare and she found it beautiful.

As she was saying this to me, I sat thinking, "Hmm. This is truth, isn't it?"

I started thinking about this past year, and some tendancies I have to think in terms of gains or losses. I remember, the very beginning of my faith, the acknowledgement that every part of who I'd been would change. I remember, trying to decide if it was worth it. All our lives before that had been "fight or flight." However, I think by the time I came to know I needed the Lord, I was unable to fly or fight. I was unable to do anything. It is poor thinking and theology when we now think we are able to do either or anything apart from him. I began thinking about all my fears, from the inside and from the world. I began to think about this God that is invisible. This God that promises love beyond sight, and I think about the way he is the one who changed me when I could not move, when I was dead in my fears.

I wish that fear was something that vanishes as soon as one decides to follow God. It's not, but it is something that loses its power and strength over it's captive. Lydi, the dear girl I was with in Rwanda, recently sent me a letter with a home-made sign that says "Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear." It is true. I've found so many times that instead of believing that, instead of knowing that the Lord is my safety, I cover my body with fear like it is some sort of shield. If anything, it only keeps away our understanding of Love. It is okay to go ahead with jumps, with dives, with all endeavors we are lead into that before seemed impossible. However, it is imperative that when the Lord calls us to do something, we not try to cover our bodies, we not try to swim in air as we would in water with our arms making a peaceful dive impossible. Instead, I want to be one that spreads my arms as wide as possible. There is something startlingly beautiful in spreading your arms in wide vulnerability to Love.

The lady said that when she stopped scrambling, she was able to see, and see more clearly the world than every before. And that she could rest and watch and be glad.

I don't know how many safe planes I am to jump from before I meet the Lord face to face, but I do know that I want to do so as many times as I'm allowed,, barechested, in order to see from his heights.

On returning to Pawleys Island, before the move out West.

I have been wanting to write this blog for a couple of weeks now, and have been milling over it in my mind, but have lacked the time and perhaps the energy to commit to a computer for that long. I returned from Rwanda near the end of April and have been living at home in Pawleys Island with my family. I think the time in Rwanda sans electricity, internet, and telephones has made me remember what it was like to be someone who pays attention. Perhaps exactly what we crave when we are younger- things to occupy our minds- is exactly what stops our minds from being occupied. Let me rephrase that. Perhaps, certain responsibilities that we call luxuries (and are to an extent) occupy our minds in such a way as to put at a receiver's disadvantage. Their is little or no time for searching, and when we do find ourselves needing to search for something to the point of yearning, we resent it. There is a rapidity, there is a noise, there is a hiding from one's self made possible in this. Shyira, Rwanda is stripped of many luxuries, and consequently so was I when I lived there. And I am thankful. My desire in returning was to appreciate these luxuries as such, and not necessities. It was my hope in this way, they would continue to serve as little joys in life, but not distractions. I have to believe that the substance of joy is made of fibers stronger than mere happiness and that joy and luxury have little to do with one another. Sometimes, I think they exist in spite of one another...sometimes not.

On that note, somethings that have caught my attention and brought me joy since being in the United States and specifically in Pawleys Island again:

a. Visiting my Dad at the bakery, watching him as he bakes breads and cakes so enjoyably that sometimes his face gets a look of mischief, very much like a boy finding a way to do something that he knows must be wrong from the amount of happiness it brings him. I love seeing that. I love the creation, the rising, the baking, and the giving away. It is a good thing to see. I believe he loves each piece of bread that he sells, even if it is just a split-second sentiment. That must mean something.

b. I have enjoyed practising the art of running, or jogging, or walking. I like to run to the other Causeway on the island, while listening to a sermon of Sinclair Ferguson. I try to time it just right, so that I can have a specified time of sitting on a bench in front of the creek, and then run/walking back to my house. It serves a two fold purpose....1. it helps me not to concentrate on the fact that nothing about me is athletic, and that I am rebelling against natural instincts. 2. It seems remarkable to me to study God by listening, while looking at what he has created. It is beautiful to have a little explanation on the Lord that brings joy to my heart in understanding, while looking on a beauty that nothing in me comes close to understanding. It almost makes me lose my mind because I am in love with the way the Lord creates and overwhelmed by his intentionality, his plan, his rationality and the way I am unequipped at the time being to fully appreciate it for what it is, apart from its beauty. *Something, I have been thinking about in relation to this, is the detail and intricacy of creation. Little crabs can survive in hole-like tunnels in the creek mud. Fish swim in schools longer than cars that look like looming shadows under the dock until a slit between boards allows enough light to reflect each body. These are glimpses that we can see in the light, or on the surface, or when the water recedes. Amazing things happening that were not meant for my viewing pleasure (but that I do take pleasure in viewing when granted the allowance despite my limited abilities) haunt me into belief.

c. My Mom's cooking and quiet gardening. Her cooking is wonderful, with a very specified taste, that suits my palate -apart from her oatmeal:)- as well, if not better, than anything I've ever had. She uses lots of vegetables and herbs. Along the side of our house in Pawleys, past the outdoor shower, out of view unless searched after or suggested, is my mom's garden. She has not been self-applauding about this garden. In fact, most of the time it goes pretty unacknowledged. Instead, she fills our dishes with its benefits and we enjoy them. I've been interested in gardens since my return, and asked my mom to show me her garden. I had no idea that she had turned a fenced in area previously designated for Beau (our dog) into a beautiful fenced in garden, with vines growing up the sides, birdbaths, a table on stones laid into the ground, and a birdhouse. The inside was beautiful, but we spent the larger part of the time talking about the vegetables lining the outside, mostly peppers- green and banana. She explained to me how to best care for them and what their life and growth process looks like. When teaching me about peppers, she explained that before a pepper sprouts, a flower blooms. I haven't been able to get my mind past this idea. A flower blooms before the fruit. Here was a delicately beautiful flower blooming, and alongside a green pepper- a little lopsided, awkward. The flower was pretty, but the plant was a pepper plant. I thought about my mom's wonderful meals. The flower would not season them, although it would look pretty in a vase. I think my plans usually find their extent in the flower. I am afraid I would be satisfied to live a pretty and delicate life, unharmed, nice to regard, soft to the touch. This is a mistake that the Lord has been kind enough to continually and painfully prevent in his people. It is the pepper that is the fruit of the plant. I think most times, we feel that the ultimate parts of our lives are the beautiful parts, executed in graceful ease. It is just not so. How many parts of our lives have been flowers that come and go, with little to show but fleeting pleasure? I thank God that even as I long for such things, he would have times of seasoning for others in his own way. I am thankful that it is not just the lovely little parts of me that he uses. The parts that season most, I think, are the ones that have very little to offer until they are fully given over. It is used however the cooks sees fit. Not once have I ever eaten a whole pepper. Instead it is chopped so that it flavors the entire dish, not just parts. A flower is not a bad thing. We are made to have our flowers in vases beside our meals, to adorn and draw attention to the seasoned dish. However, it is foolish to think that we are made to feed others from such a distance, where our champion is our own beauty.

These things have been swimming in my mind. They have meant very much to me.

This Side of the Congo

A few weeks ago, Katie, Miriam, Fiona, Johnnie, and I took a weekend trip to Gisenyi. It is a three hour trip from Shyira and the route goes something like this. To begin, we loaded up backpacks early Friday morning, and walked down the trail from Shyira to Vunga. There had been lots of rain recently and rocks had become steep slides and there was mud where there had previously been sand. (Because of the frequent afternoon showers here, the path changes appearance from one walk to the next. Unfortunately, the roads we drive on are even more affected by weather and travel.) My booksack and gravity teamed up on me, and I slipped several times on the walk down.

Once we arrived in Vunga, we saw the bus to Ruhengheri was about to leave. We ran up to it, and realized that it was full. Let me further explain what I mean by full. Yes, the seats were completely taken. In addition, there were already approximately 25 people standing in the aisle. They told us we could come up, too. We thought there was no possible way we could squeeze in for this hour ride, but we decided to try. We all climbed through the door located right in the middle of the bus on the passenger side. Katie and I stood right in front of the door, which never closes. Although, at first the open door concerned me a little, as we rode on, it was a fresh air luxury. A few things happened on the bus, worth noting. 1. Every time we saw someone at a stop, we picked them up. I would estimate about 20 more people joined us. One man was hanging out the door for the trip. The term “personal space” has absolutely no credibility in this situation. 2. A creepy guy stood behind Katie and me, and would occasionally lean his head in between our shoulders, and whisper “Ooh La La.” Until, finally, he touched my shoulder and I said “Don’t do that again.” 3. To top off this, Katie and I hear Miriam, who had been pushed about five people behind us, say, “I will punch you in the face. I’m serious- I will beat you up.” Apparently, some guys had asked if a poor girl like her needed protection in a country like this, that they would be her intimate protection. (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before the two sides of Miri- Side a. “Mama Miri”- if anything happens to you or you need comfort, this is who you want. Side b. “Headmistress Miri”- if someone is forward with you in a bus packed like sardines, you know she will accomplish every warning she makes about punching someone in the face.) Katie and I looked at each other and started laughing. The funny thing is she did not remember saying it. Katie and I asked her about it, and she didn’t remember. Miri knows how to take care of business, but she doesn’t take it home with her.

We switched buses in Ruhengheri and travelled two hours to Gisenyi. This bus was more like an enlarged mini-van and it was actually a comparably nice ride. I sat by a guy who spoke very good English and he informed me of the history of the towns we passed through. He pointed out the schools, different vegetables growing, a tea company, and the army camps. We arrived around one and checked into the Presbyterian Guest House in Gisenyi, which was really nice and only 3,000 francs a night! Our room was right by an outdoor cafeteria that served great food. That afternoon, we went down to a nice hotel right on Lake Kivu that looks across to the volcanoes in the Congo. It was beautiful, and we went swimming (despite a few warnings against methane in the water and possible parasites.) It was wonderful! The mountains were gorgeous, and the water felt so refreshing. I haven’t been completely submerged in water for too long. It needed to happen. Also, I convinced Katie to waterski. She’s a pro. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant, which we hadn’t done in months. Although, everything was amazing, it felt uncomfortable. The waiter at the hotel told us George Clooney liked to come there, but I was staring at the jungles of the Congo just across this lake.

That night, we came back home, exhausted and went to sleep….sort of. I had trouble falling asleep because of all the talking in the canteen outside our door. Finally, it began to die down, and there were a few scattered voices, and I drifted off until “The Thong Song” began blaring. I lost it, completely. Katie’s bed was right beside mine, and I said, “Katie, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hear ‘The Thong Song?’”

“Yes.”

“I can’t take this anymore.” And I climbed out of my bed, threw on something decent, and walked out the door around midnight, to set straight whoever had woken me from my sleep in the Presbyterian Guest House, in the middle of Africa with “The Thong Song!” However, when I shut my bedroom door behind me, I found three men staring up at me, watching the Sisco music video on a phone, and realized, “It’s midnight, in the middle of Africa, and I’m about to lecture three grown men?” So, instead I said, “Excuse me, sir. I’m trying to sleep. Could you please turn your music down?” Embarrassed, they politely apologized, and I quickly excused myself. It is may be the most ridiculous part of my whole trip here.
The next day, it was really rainy. There was a river of mud running down the right side of the main road, and people had to use little bridges to cross into stores. We went to the market, and explored Gisenyi. That afternoon we went out to this little hotel on the water, and we had dinner, and came back to the restaurant at our hotel, ordered coffee, and played a German board game Johnnie and Fiona brought. It was so fun.

However, that night, I couldn’t go to sleep. It was one of the most miserable nights I’ve had in my life. I prayed, I kicked my sheets off, and pulled them back on, I listened to hymns on my ipod. I couldn’t get the DRC out of my head. It was too close. The weight of it found me in my bed. I couldn’t piece together this place. My mind found no consolation in logic or reason. I felt like a person that stares at the sun until they are blind. It was such an exhaustion of heart and mind that it rejected sleep. I stayed in bed wrestling with thoughts of, “Why not me over there?” “Can things like this really happen, if I can’t fathom them?” “Where is the justice and protection in this world?” “When will suffering stop?”

Finally, my mind came to one relief. Sometimes, the only consolation in this world, is Christ himself. Sometimes, that is absolutely it. I cannot imagine what is going on over there, or the evil that is pouring through the veins of some people over there, and the pain pouring through others. The problem is I cannot understand their suffering. My heart has been introduced to heartbreaking things, but this physical suffering- what do I know of it? It is in this crippling concern that the promise of Christ is so illuminated and worthy. That in this world we will have troubles, but he has overcome the world. My heart breaking for the women being repeatedly raped in the Congo, for the awful murders and abuses, for the appalling violence unimaginable to me- it doesn’t stop it. What’s more my conception of what kind of healing must occur under the skin and in the minds of these people is minute. However, my comfort for them and for my own mind in this situation is this: Christ knows. He knows their pain, and he has known the pain of vicious death and abandonment and forsakenness. He is a full of sympathy, and absolutely does not leave us where we are. I don’t understand so many things about suffering on this earth, but I know God hates evil. I know every time someone is hurt, the pain shoots through him in a way I can’t conceive.

That night, the thought of heaven felt like the weight of the good Lord’s hand on my long-winded heart, and it stilled me, and I slept. My rest was found in his love for others. I think these people understand something of the glory of heaven that we usually have only after we get there. A longing that is in our own souls, but too usually too overshadowed by sexy pastimes, finds its relief in Christ’s heaven. Things will be made whole. Every wound will be sought out and healed. I want to bear the burden of others in such a way that makes me further seek out and trust a sufficient burden bearer for all the needs I cannot meet in and of myself.

a match on a hill.

The past week, I’ve been pretty sick and I have felt a bit useless and cooped up in doors. I had to miss the bible study Wednesday, and although we rescheduled for Friday, I found out Peace, my translator, couldn’t make it. So, I began a walk down to the school to tell my girls we would have to postpone again. It was wonderful timing, because as it turns out, when I arrived, all of the girls were getting water before a soccer game they were to play at the school. They’d told me about it Monday and I’d forgotten. So, it was actually perfect.


The school is set on a hill, with different parts of the school at different elevations. The soccer game was in a depressed area, with a hill on one side and a drop off on the other. When I walked up to the watering place with Lydia as my translator, sweet Angelique told me that they were about to play, and asked if I was coming. The rest of the girls walked down with me to the edge of the hill overlooking the field, and Lydia returned home. My friend Clementine’s son, Albert, pulled up a bench for me, and I sat down. It wobbled under the weight of my body and I wondered if it would hold up. Then, four more children sat down and it steadied. It seems that some things are less stable without pressure. My girls climbed down to the field and I was surrounded by boys and girls watching me watch my girls.

I couldn’t get over these girls. They seemed so sure of themselves. These girls treated each other with the kind of affectionate informality one rarely sees outside of siblings. Everyone in Shyira has short hair, probably only about an inch in length. Most of my girls have shaved heads. They had on pants, they hardly have any attributes that look like women yet, and there is no hair to create the impression of a girl. But somehow, they were brilliantly feminine. They were the sort of feminine feminists shoot for, and can’t help but miss. These girls were feminine just because they were. It was how they were born. They ran like little boys, and cut their hair like little boys, but there was no mistaking these girls. They were beautiful and free and didn’t even know it, and so retained every bit of unassuming wealth. I am in full admiration and love for them.

For a better view, I moved and sat on the side of the hill, and let my feet rest on a stump jutting out. Children came and sat by me, as closely as possible. Then, children pressed against my back and on my sides. There were so many little hands touching me at different points that I was completely unable to match them with a face. However, three girls sat to my right arm against arm, and didn’t move for the rest of the match. Most of the children began pointing and laughing, saying, “Muzungu,” which means white person. I said, “Oya Muzungu. Nitwa Emily.” (Meaning: Not Muzungu. My name is Emily.) After that, most of the children started saying, “Emwhirlee.” Or something of the like. It is so sweet. I don’t know that I’ve ever loved hearing my name said more than the way these children say it. It makes me glad my mom chose this name, and it makes me wish she could hear them say it. It amazes me that the Lord always knew my name would be spoken through those lips, and he always knew it would bring me a joy that is so deeply entangled in his plans and his blessings that I can’t describe it.

The children and I sat there for an hour watching the game. I cheered and laughed, although most of the time the kids didn’t…except maybe at me. The girls in my study would look up on the hill and see me, their fierce and serious face of competition turning into a quick eyebrow lift and smile. This may be my favorite characteristic of Rwandan culture, an affirmative lift of the eyebrows. It’s a swift and loaded acknowledgement. I realize I’ve begun to do it back, and it surprises them. Little understandings mean much when you only know a few words of one another’s language. It is strange that we have talked so deeply about scripture through Peace’s translations. Yet, we fumble over our words when we try to really speak to one another. The eyebrow raise is a relief to my tongue and lips, which rarely accomplish any task set before them here.

The girls sitting beside me had feet stretched down in green plastic sandals, or maybe they are rubbers, that are very common to most children in this village. Here, gaps between toes and arches fill with dirt, sand, mud, probably droppings, and natural perspiration, which creates a sweet, stinking smell. Then, there are the unwashed armpits that are voicing themselves. These smells – theirs and mine-combined and we were people, hot in the sun, glad to be near each other.

The sun began to burn my chest. One little girl sitting beside me reached up and pressed the sunburn. Then, realizing it turned white upon pressure, her little jaw dropped. She looked at me and I laughed and pressed it again. She laughed, and kept pressing it. I pressed her arm wondering if it would change, but it didn’t and we kept laughing. Then, she took my arm and placed it beside hers, and started touching its hair. Then, she touched my fingernails. It was the least offensive and most joyful inspection I’ve ever received in my life. In the meantime, a little girl pulled fly away hairs out of my face, and some boy behind picked off bugs that had landed on my neck.

Some of the children said, “Good morning,” to me. I would say “Oya, good evening.” The hill seats looked directly across to the sun going down behind the mountains across a valley. With my left hand, I tried to create mountain peaks out of knuckles. With my right hand, I formed a circle for the sun. I tried to show it’s rising and falling for the times of day. They ended up telling me the words for mountain and sun in Kinyarwanda and I made up a song with only those two words. I would sing it in a tune, and they would repeat. Then, they would sing it in a tune and I would repeat. What began as them looking to practice English turned into them tutoring me in Kinyarwanda. While, periodically, the girls from my study would look up from the field to see if I was still there, and upon seeing me raise the eyebrows and curl the lips. I would mirror the response.

My girls, it turns out, were not the winning team. Luckily, few things could matter less to me. I ran down to the field and hugged them each. I felt so proud of them and thankful that they would have me there to watch. We walked back until the path from my house split from the road. I think this has been my favorite moment here thus far. I can’t describe how none of these things was separate from a burning in my chest from the Lord and for the Lord. I felt like I was where I should be, with people I was to be with, and time and joy seemed to fit together for an hour or so.

My favorites lately. Don't tell me i can only have one.

1.Early mornings, reading hymns and talking about the Lord with Caleb and Lydia

2.My hands being big enough to perfectly envelope a kitten until it feels safe enough to fall asleep...how it sighs every time I do.

3.Out of the Silent Planet and Sigur Ros

4.My chest swelling with pride and pleasure after creating new recipes from the same market list every week with Miriam and Katie

5.Walking to get a coca cola, sitting on stools on the little store's porch, and drinking it straight from the bottle.

6.Feeling like my body is my own again and not a watering hole for parasites.

7.Reading by candle light.

8.Writing letters.

9.Morning oatmeal with cinnamon and a jam made special with tiny Rwandan strawberries.

10.Recognizing and being recognized by girls from my small group

11.Impromptu trips to Ruhengheri, just to get to buy jam and coffee from a store

12.Phonetically learning cheeky German phrases from Johannie and Fionna that I use to
surprise the other Germans, (sounds like {kuk-mah-ver-droightch-kan}: "look who speaks German now...?"

13.Lighting my gas stove top, blowing out the match, sticking the end of the match in a spilt water, and listening to the the sound it makes.

14.Goat kids headbutting when their horns are no more than nubbs, their wreckless valor advancing their bodies.

15.Dancing in a 17 x 11 room to celebrate Immaculate's baptism, with no regard to the fact that I am a Muzungu, lack rhythm and coordination, and that I am unable to stop laughing even after it becomes painful.

16.Writing haikus in english.

17.Praying for loved ones while they sleep.

18.Getting dew on my toes when I walk to borrow milk in the mornings

19.Being so surrounded by the clouds, that I feel like I'm in the midst of the sunrise

20.Afternoons in my rocker with a book and french press.

21.Singing Bob Dylan with Katie on and off throughout the day

22."Full Grown Man/ Suspicious Minds" by Phosphorescent

23.The wonder and ache of missing people.

24.My feet becoming more sure on unlevel ground.

25.Swimming in Lake Kivu by the volcanoes.