Much is happening

Today, I feel like a missionary. So many things to do, and this time I have been able to jump right in and I really feel like I can help people. I don’t feel the least bit out of place, just kinda like I’ve come back home. I feel so exhausted at the end of the day, and I still have a million things on my mind about what I need to do next. But it’s not like, “Ugh, I have that paper, and a test, and that one pointless meeting, and that class—you know the one.” It’s like, “K, gotta get Eunice a blanket, talk to Linus and Stephen about some stuff, figure out a place for Jane to live, and get out of this skirt b/c I bought it at goodwill for $2 and it doesn’t fit very well and it feels like it’s around my armpits.” Good times. . . But seriously, it’s (mostly) things that matter. People are my vocation. Awesome. I know it won’t be quite so much that way when I’m teaching, but still essentially. I feel so blessed to be in this situation. I really love it here working in Misiri; it’ll be so difficult to leave. It’s awesome because they’ve really begun to consider me one of their own.

I want to tell you a story about an amazing woman. Her name is Esther, a very common name in the area. Esther was the first client of the Shade ministry I was able to meet last time I came here, and she really started out my trip right. Her joy and acceptance made me see the HIV positive and the poor in a new light. She has a very special place in my heart. We saw her the other day, coming back from another client’s house. She has started a business selling food and coal since I was here last time, and she is doing extremely well. I haven’t seen such a well run and prosperous business among any of the clients in Misiri or Karanjee. She invited us in (and she remembered me, which I guess isn’t that difficult to do considering the amount of white people in the area) and told me how happy she was to see me and how well she was doing, smiling the whole time. Her joy in Christ just beaming out of her—nearly literally. She talked to us for a while (of which I understood about half!). When we left, Rosemary (the head of the medical portion of the Shade ministry serving people with HIV) told me she used to be a drunk and has only been saved for about 7-8 months, “She has really turned her life around,” she said. And it’s true. Wow! –I really can’t say anything more.

CRAZY story: Ha! Guess what happened to me today? . . . . . . . ok, you’re wrong, I was not attacked by a rabid monkey, nor was I ran over by a donkey. Good guesses though. Close. I was sitting in the car talking to Humphrey (he works for Imani Shade ministry) and my backpack was in my seat. I had unzipped the front pocket of my backpack because I was getting money out to pay for parking. One of the local beggars came to the window, “Mzungu, one shilling.” I shook my head, he’s a regular, and you get used to them. It’s sad, but you can only give to so many people. And I’m not saying that like an American in the States to justify not helping someone out. No, I am literally, yes, literally, better off that pretty much everyone I come in contact with (all the while being on a fixed income for a year), and I am able to help a lot of people. Anyhow, as my head was turned just slightly away from the beggar guy, he snatched some money out of my bag and ran off. I was all, “Hey!” and turned my head out the window. Humphrey, “What happened?” “He took my money.” And off he runs after the guy. I was just gonna count it as lost. Hey, I was stupid to leave my bag open like that, anyway. Have at it guy. People all around me are asking what happened and I’m telling them—hating the attention in a ridiculous, Bella sort of way. I roll up the windows and turn off the car, and now there is a huge crowd that is growing around the guy (who Humphrey apparently caught) and he is busy giving him “some slaps”—according to Humphrey. Everyone’s yelling, and Humphrey’s trying to ask me how much the guy took—I don’t know. I’m trying to tell Humphrey to just have him return the money and let the guy go. I felt awful, that guy getting “some slaps” for me. So, all of a sudden—due to nothing I said, cause they do have a tendency to ignore the mzungu—they stop and humphrey’s coming back to the car, handing me a wet, muddy, wadded up 100 shillings, and sticks it on the dash to dry. His adrenaline is just pumping. And, looking back, he’s redikulously fast, considering the delay before I and then he knew what happened. Everyone was very upset that someone would steal from me, I mean everybody. We’re looking at like 50 minimum that were around at the time. Crazy morning—and yes, this was first thing, by the way. Crazy, huh? Well, yet another cultural experience I’ve never come in contact growing up in Quanah and then moving to the big city of Brownwood and then Plainview.