Time Flies

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

How is tomorrow June first?!

KEMPS will close for a month long break at the end of this week and the excitement is definitely in the air.  The students started their final exams on Friday and will finish them today.  Then the teachers will begin busily grading exams, preparing homework packets, and finalizing end of term reports for each student in their class.  Most of this work is actually done during the school day while the students review their exams and hurriedly write corrections of the questions they missed so they can go outside and play with their friends.  The rainstorms we were getting nearly every day have suddenly stopped and the days are full of warm sunshine.  Even though we follow a yearlong school calendar which begins in January, with the final exams and excitement and warm weather it reminds me so much of the final days of the school year from when I was a kid, and then a teacher, back home.  

I’m sure part of what is fueling that excitement for me is the fact that in just four days I will be traveling home to Texas for the first time since last July.  With COVID and then my family’s visit after Christmas, I’ve been in Tanzania for almost a year- the longest stretch without a visit home since I moved here in 2018.  And while most days I stay completely wrapped up in what has truly become a wonderful life here in Bukoba, I realized several weeks ago that the time away has worn on me.  I found myself missing and even longing for the most random aspects of American life (we’re talking morning commute to work and Walmart self-checkout lines), and I decided it was time for a visit.  

When talking with my therapist about it last week, trying to figure out how I could be so happy here but also so homesick, she replied with what seems like a very simple statement: “A year is a long time to be away from home.”  But when she said it, I felt relief wash over me.  Finally someone else said what I’d been thinking.

While we often remark about how time flies, and it does, we say that referring to the mathematical, calculated principle of time.  When we look back at a year and can’t believe it’s come and gone already, we are talking about the 365, 24-hour days that have passed.  And I don’t think that aspect of time is what has worn on me.  Even I, when looking back on this past year, feel like it was just last week that I was home for quarantine.  No it’s not that the time doesn’t fly by.  So what is it? 

It’s the birthdays.  It’s the holidays.  It’s the annual church cookouts.  It’s the trips to the beach.  It’s all of the things that happen in a year, and that have happened every single year of my 27 year old life, that I didn’t just forget about when I moved to Tanzania.  It’s Mother’s Day and Christmas concerts and graduation ceremonies and field day at school.  It’s watching as the stores put out décor for the next holiday (way too early) and late night ice cream runs and reruns of TV shows that you watched as a kid.  And after a year, while the days and weeks and months may have passed quickly, the list of those everyday things that you’ve missed has continued to grow to the point where you’re no longer just homesick for Christmas traditions with your family, but for those cheesy Christmas M&M commercials! 

Now don’t worry, I haven’t completely lost it.  I don’t just sit and think about this stuff all the time.  Like I said, most of the time I am consumed with my new “everyday”.  But all of this is still under the surface.  With each passing holiday I scroll through Facebook and am reminded, even if just for a minute, of what I’m missing, and of what I miss.  

As I reflect on all of this, it’s hard to do so without stopping to realize just how blessed I am.  How blessed am I to have had such a wonderful life before moving to Tanzania?  To have so much to miss?  And how blessed am I to have such a wonderful life in Tanzania?  To have two completely different yet equally wonderful spheres of life in which to exist and live and love and be loved in return.  It’s impossible to see the struggles of my situation without recognizing how truly incredible it is.  

Will I be able to fit a year’s worth of experiences into a two week visit?  Probably not.  But am I going to try?  Absolutely.  Will all of those mundane things that I’ve romanticized for a year lose their luster once I’m home?  Probably.  And that’s okay.  My prayer is that these two weeks at home fill up the part of my heart that has been aching, and that I’ll return to Tanzania filled up again, ready for these last six months of service with my students and colleagues at KEMPS.  

Mungu akubariki,
Allee

Many of you have asked about Joseph’s visa situation so I thought I would update you.  We applied for his actual visa and his interview, the last step in the process, will be on July 6th.  We ask for your prayers as we cross this finish line.  Pray that at his interview he receives the final “yes” that we have been waiting and praying for.  If all goes well, we will come home to Texas together in December.  

With my Daisy girl.  Look at that smile!