Friends Around the World

Right now on FaceBook, I have dear friends online who are in:

• Cameroon
• Dodoma, TZ
• Indiana
• Dar es Salaam
• North Carolina
• Musoma, TZ
• Denmark
• Tennessee
• California
• and Holland, MI.

It’s amazing.  I love that I live in a place where I’m surrounded by – and get to know – so many people from and in so many places all around the world.

And yet, as I prepare to say goodbyes…
               goodbyes to my kids,
                             goodbyes to new friends and old,
                                          goodbyes to a life I’ve grown accustomed to in this city for the past two years and a community where I’ve had good times and bad, hard transitions and joyful hugs... have fallen down, gotten back up and kept going…
I’m struggling.  Struggling with what it means to have friends everywhere and yet… no place to call home.  Or every place to call home.  Which, in essence, is really no place at all.

It’s ironic, really.  How can I know so many amazing people and yet feel so… by myself?  Have great support networks around the world and feel… misplaced?  Say I trust that God has a plan and yet… question everything He's doing?

Know I don’t belong in this place, in this world… and yet, somehow want to?

Hebrews 11 says,

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.  And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Yeah.  This is a reminder that I need.  Especially right now.  And often.  That this place is not our home.  And that someday, we'll get to BE home.  With Jesus.  Surrounding His throne.  And seeing all the people that we were honored to be surrounded by along the way...

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." - Heb 12:1-3

I guess if the life I've been called to requires that I remember even more vividly that I'm an alien and stranger in this land... if I'm stared at and called out to daily... if I'm charged higher prices and am treated differently because of the color of my skin... if I don't always understand what's going on around me... and if I live far from "home"... then it'll have to be worth it in the end.  Because, when the time comes, I won't be so attached to this place.  It will be even more evident where I truly belong.  And God won't be ashamed to be called my God (Heb 16:11), because I've lived knowing there's something better in store for me ahead.

Taking it one. day. at. a time. :)