Doable...

I have been thinking a lot about what I wrote last. Over these past few weeks, I have continued to pray that I faint not and that I keep up.

And gosh, I just have so many thoughts about being here lately.

Obviously one of my first thoughts right now is that this is hard. It is harder than I originally anticipated.

I think most of this is just reality coming to the surface.

Like realizing that it is December and Christmas seems more significant than it ever has in the past. This is the first year that I’m realizing that I genuinely do enjoy being with my family during the holidays. I miss the silly traditions and the hectic holiday schedule of traveling from this side of the family to the other. And I have never had to miss such things before because they have always been there.

Or realizing that I was not there for one of my best friend’s weddings in May and now she is expecting her first child. Seeing a picture of her tiny baby bump made me want to cry because I suddenly am so aware that I am not going to be around to journey through that stage of life with her.

You know, I have traveled to the other side of the world and the pace of life here is nonstop and sometimes I forget that life has continued on without me back in the States. And it is not until I see my family celebrating holidays or my friends getting married or my friends starting their own families (yikes!) that I realize that nothing stopped when I came to Kenya.

Life is moving where I am.

Life is moving where I have come from.

And I guess that this is also perhaps my first realization that there are sacrifices involved in all of this.

Since being here, I cannot tell you how many people have come up to me and said something in terms of “Wow, you are sacrificing so much to be here.” Truthfully, in the past I have always said something about how it does not feel like a sacrifice to be where I love.

Because really, I love Kenya. I love joining into what Jesus is doing here. So up until now I have thought that it is not much of a sacrifice to be where I love, doing what I love.

However the weight of sacrifice is coming through in different ways than I anticipated. It is not in terms of no longer having a car or not having the small things that make life in America so much more convenient.

Instead I am talking about sacrifice in the sense that I am missing out on the lives of the people that I love and in some ways they are missing out on my life as well.

I do not mean the overarching details of our lives. Technology allows for that thankfully. But I mean the nitty gritty, the fine details, of everyday life and growing up. There is no way to truly produce that.

This all has made me think about the story in the Bible of King David buying the threshing floor to build an altar. To summarize, King David goes to buy the land and the owner wants him to take it for free.

David responds to this offer with, “No, I’ve got to buy it from you for a good price. I’m not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice.”

I keep reminding myself of the same thing.

For in coming to reality, in realizing the sacrifices of being in Kenya, I recognize that it is the sacrifices that add meaning to this journey and to my character.

Because like David, I do not want to offer God something that costs me nothing.

And already I can tell you that in whatever this costs and in whatever I feel I am missing, I would not change a thing. I know I am right where I am supposed to be.

And that just makes fainting not and keeping up all the more doable.

P.S. Thank you for all of your prayers! I felt… I feel… every one of them.