That’s where I was for about a week and a half in October! Though my teammate and I still can’t return full-time, we were able to return for a short visit to see our friends there, and it was wonderful! It was so fun to see their excited surprise when they saw me, and for them to see my excitement when I saw them, too! Oh, what a wonderful gift my loving Heavenly Father gave me in that time there!
My first morning in the country, before I was in my city, I called a friend to say hi. Obviously she didn’t realize that I had called with a phone number from My Country, since she just said hi like she always does when I called from the US. But then she asked how my family was, and I said that I heard that they were fine, but that I wasn’t there. She didn’t take the bait, later saying that she just thought I was in Germany since I had last called from there. I couldn’t take the suspense any longer, so I asked her, “Aren’t you going to ask where I am if I only told you where I’m not?” She consented: “Where are you?” My answer: “In Your Country!” And then we were both so very happy and couldn’t wait to see each other!!
In some ways it felt like I hadn’t been gone at all, and all was just as it had been before. In other ways it felt like it had been forever since I had seen them. For example, my first day there, one of my best friends (Fatoumata) and I just kept looking at each other and smiling and laughing – we were together again!
In some ways it was a hard trip. In those few short days, I had so much of life to both rejoice over and grieve with those I love – weddings, babies, new jobs, chronic illnesses, deaths, etc. Do you remember little Rachida who died of eye cancer a year and a half ago? Her mom and grandma were two of the people I visited and got to grieve with. Besides all that, even just trying to see a portion of the people I had come to love during my 5 years there, both in the city and the village, over the course of a week and a half, was exhausting! On the last day alone, when I was in the capital waiting for my plane, I got together with two friends who now live there and at least tried contacting more than 60 others, some to say hi to, others to say goodbye to.
In other ways it was a wonderful trip! I got to hang out and catch up with lots of people I love and missed! I got to see evidence of God working in people’s lives! I got to remind people that I hadn’t forgotten about them but would be back when God opened the door. And I got to speak French and Jula to my heart’s content. 🙂
I could go on and on about my time there and how wonderful it was, but let me just add a single Bible verse that sums it up pretty well.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
~ Proverbs 13:12