When I first arrived and wanted to make friends as quickly as possible:

 

 

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When I can’t remember which stand at the market charges more to the Vazaha and I accidentally go to the expensive one:

 

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When there’s ten minutes left of class and I’ve run out of material to teach:

 

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Me on the phone with any Madagasgal after something trivial has happened but it feels like the end of the world:

 

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When people assume I speak French and don’t believe me when I tell them otherwise:

 

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When I am included in the conversation by proximity but don’t understand what was just said and everyone else begins to laugh:

 

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When I am catcalled for the millionth time that day:

 

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When I am called a Vazaha for the millionth time that day:

 

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Seeing my friends back home hanging out without me:

 

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The continuous parties for a month+ after New Year’s:

 

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After the holiday season when I have gone to church and parties every single day and each has had 1-10 offerings:

 

 

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When I’m having a good attitude about waking up before 5:20am and eating dinner at 9:30pm…:

 

… and when I’m having a bad attitude about it:

 

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Getting on the Taxi Brousse to go to retreats:

 

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Anytime I was sick:

 

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When my host siblings put the babies in a basket, tied a rope to it, and pulled them across the sand as fast as possible until the babies fell out laughing like it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to them:

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When Pastor Kirsten called and told us the date we would be leaving our communities:

 

Getting on the taxi-brousse to leave:

 

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And finally, me at all times:

This is a blog I should have written a long time ago.  Church is a major part of my life here in Madagascar for a few reasons, and while it indeed deserves a post I honestly hadn’t thought too much about it before, until my parents visited.  After they experienced their first Malagasy church service, my dad turned to me and said, “You have to write a blog about this.”  Around that time, a friend and fellow YAGM sent a request in a group message for us to share our stories of worship in our various countries.  I typed out a message with the basics of Malagasy church services not thinking too much about it, and he responded with this GIF of Jimmy Fallon:

In the past eight months, the Malagasy Lutheran Church (FLM) has become my ‘new normal.’  I realized in this moment that I had forgotten how different church truly is here.  So here I am, attempting to put into words the way that the FLM is intertwined with my life here.

For starters, church services are long—on a typical communion Sunday, the service lasts about four hours, but I have attended church services that lasted only an hour and a half, and some that lasted over six hours.   The duration is due to a variety of reasons.  The first is that offering is done completely differently than in the ELCA churches I have attended in the United States.  When I first got here, I thought of it as ‘reverse communion’.  Congregants file out of their pews, row by row, and walk up the outer aisles to the front where a number of offering baskets are placed.  In my church, there are typically seven baskets, but some have fewer.  Each basket represents a different organization: the general church fund, a fund for a new church building, electricity, the Women’s Department, etc.  After placing money in the baskets, the people file back down the center aisle and sit back down.  This process takes about 45 minutes on a typical Sunday at Katedral.  Why does it take so long, you ask?  Because roughly 1,000 members attend the second service each communion Sunday.  No, you did not read that wrong.  I did not add an extra zero by mistake.  People are tightly packed in each pew, filling the floor level and the balcony, and many people are seated outside, listening in from chairs placed under a tent covering.  And that is only the second service; there are two other services that take place, one before and one after.  One of the questions I received when I put that information in the group message was, “Is your church the only one in town?”  The answer is absolutely not, there are at least six other FLM churches within walking distance from my church.  Katedral has 600 children in Sunday School and the main choir, KTKT, has over 80 members (and it’s not the only choir of the church).  You can understand then, why communion takes over an hour and a half.

Other than this, the service itself does not stray too far from what I have experienced my whole life: we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, we do the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed in the same tempo, we take communion (but only on the first and third Sunday of the month).  I attend church every Sunday, as well as twice on Thursday (once with KTKT and once with the Women’s Department) every week.  The Saturday before communion there is an afternoon service.  It is not an oddity for me to worship all seven days a week, or over 12 hours at church on any given day.

Another special part of the FLM is the revival movement inspired by the prophet Nenilava, who lived not so long ago.  There have been four revival movements in the FLM, but the one I hear about is Nenilava’s.  From all accounts she was an amazing woman, spreading the word of God across the world.  She founded Tobys, places for the physically and mentally ill members of the church to be served by mpiandry, or shephards.  As she grew in popularity, mpiandry began to serve the church in a variety of ways, and are held to very high esteem in the FLM.  To become a mpiandry, a person must study for two years—it is not an easy task.  Mama’s story of becoming a mpiandry is incredible, and it finally happened at the insistence of Nenilava herself, a call Mama had no choice but to accept.   One of the most fascinating jobs of the mpiandry is to perform exorcisms followed by a laying of hands.  While this was once an unfamiliar and therefore unsettling aspect of my church experience, it is now something I truly look forward to.  The times I have experienced it in my community have all been with KTKT at our weekly services, and each time it has been a meaningful experience for me.  I feel so centered and at peace kneeling in front of the mpiandry in front of me, who lays their hand on my head and prays for me in a way I can’t put into words and have never witnessed before.  I’m not a person who sits and prays in the typical way—hands folded, big words, the whole nine yards.  I consider my version of prayer to be my inner monologue, a constant process of thinking and wishing and thanking.  But in this moment, this prayer feels important.  Even though, and maybe especially because, they speak so quickly I can’t understand the words.  Everything is communicated to me by the tone, the body language, and every other form on nonverbal communication.  It’s an amazing experience and I wish I could explain it in a more profound way to do it the justice it deserves.

So that is the very basic, core of the FLM.  There are about a thousand other ways that make it different and beautiful, and a thousand other ways that make it beautiful and the same.  There are many ways in which the FLM frustrates me, and many ways in which the FLM moves me, much like the ELCA.  While I can’t put all of this into words, I can say that over the past nine months of integrating myself into this community I have gained an amazing insight into the faith and beauty of this congregation and I feel so blessed to be involved and accepted.

Last month, many of my peers participated in a “YAGM March Photo Challenge,” a month of sharing photos each day about specific parts of their lives and experiences.  While it was not something I chose to do, one of the days stuck out to me:  What does accompaniment look like to you?  This blog post is my answer to that question. 

 

One of my favorite things to do here in Madagascar is take trips to the countryside.  Each time I have had the opportunity to travel to these small, sandy villages far from the hustle and bustle of Toliara, I find myself feeling rejuvenated for my mission.  The break from everyday life provides me a chance to center myself.  This past weekend I traveled to Monombo, a small village about two and a half hours from Toliara and an hour away from any sign of asphalt, with Mama and the rest of my choir.  We went to attend and perform at a Jubilee, a special ceremony to celebrate a person or group who has spent many years serving the church, this particular one to celebrate the retirement of a man who has worked as an FLM Pastor for 42 years.  When I hopped on the large, open-aired bus to begin the trip, my friend Christina eagerly waved me over to sit with her and another friend.  We crammed in three adults to a bench the size of that on an American school bus and headed north.

Monombo is the countryside where Mama and her family hail from, and I have been fortunate now to have visited twice.  The first time was only a brief stop on the way to the funeral I attended in February, so I was happy to spend more time in this place where I could picture her as a young girl from the stories she has told me over dinner for the past eight months.  So while my choir friends stayed together in a small building near the church, Mama and I slept at one of the houses where her extended family still lives.  Alternating my time between the two locations offered me laughter, play, and work with my friends at the choir house, and rest, relaxation, and meeting family with Mama.

Shortly after we settled down, Mama and I went to the very small market, which consisted of ten separate vendors with a little produce and a lot of fish spread out on small tarps on the ground.  Mama bought us coffee, oranges (which are green here), and sugarcane.  We brought the sugarcane to some of her family in a different house and sat down to eat with a middle-aged woman and three young women who appeared to be about my age.  I had tried it the week before and really liked it, but had given up about the third of the way into my chunk because it was so difficult for me to eat.  It is sold in either large stocks, or foot-long chunks.  To eat it, you take the chunk and use your teeth to tear away the outer layer.  Then you bite off small pieces, chew until you get out all of the flavor, and spit the rest out.

Here’s a fun fact you may not know about me: a small portion of the bottom part of my front-left tooth is fake.  I chipped it in October of my senior year of college.  It was a big enough chip that I had it filled in, but small enough that I waited until Thanksgiving break to have it fixed at home.  About a month after having it fixed, the filled in part broke off while eating and I had to have it fixed for a second time.  Because of this, I am usually pretty cautious about chewing.  The problem is that the front teeth are pretty essential in the tearing involved in eating sugar cane.  So when I took my chunk of sugarcane, I tried to tear it with my back teeth, a process that makes the sugar juice drip down my chin and is fairly ineffective and made the women laugh hysterically.  I looked down at my sugarcane, embarrassed, and asked them for a knife so I could cut off the top part and try again (if you don’t do it right it becomes impossible to eat further without cutting).  They handed me a knife and I went to saw off my section, and again they laughed.  “It’s not meat,” Mama laughed.  One of the young women took the knife and sugarcane from me and brought the tool high above her head, using it as a machete to cut off the edge.  I tried, again, and failed, again, to eat it the Malagasy way.  This time, she took the cane and cut it into small chunks that I could easily chew without all the tearing.  I take great pride in doing things the Malagasy way, so when I finished eating my pre-cut sugarcane pieces, all I felt was defeated from the feeling of failure and nauseous from all the sugar.

Mama and I left the house and headed to find my choir friends to ask about the program for the day.  When we arrived at the KTKT house, the president, as always, gave me a huge smile and welcomed me.  “Amin’ny firy ny program androany?”  I asked him, What time is the program today?, as Mama waited down the path.  “2:30!” he responded.  I gave him a slightly puzzled look but nodded, sure that I had understood his Malagasy but surprised as I had thought it was long after that by now.  Mama must have seen my face, because she came up and asked the same question, and he gave her the same reply.  “2:30? Amin’ny firy izao?”, What time is it now?, she asked, sounding about as confused as I had been moments earlier.  The president looked at his watch and replied with a laugh, “3:30!”  And that, my friends, is Lera Gasy, Malagasy Time, at its finest.

Mama stopped to chat with her friends, and some of mine waved me over from where they were cooking.  “Miasa!” they told me, Work!, while handing me a knife and something that looked like a very large squash that had been quartered and had the seeds removed.  I eagerly grabbed the knife, happy to help and feel like a productive member of society after my failure with the sugarcane, and sat down on the ground next to them.  I held the vegetable in one hand and the knife in the other and started to cut it carefully and precisely, until my friends started laughing at me.  They then showed me the proper way to prepare food in Madagascar: hold the vegetable in one hand, and the knife in the other.  Bring the knife roughly to eye level, and bring it down quickly.  Essentially, you break it into chunks by whacking at it with the knife.  Similar in practice to the sugarcane, but a softer food that seemed less intimidating.  As I attempted to copy them, I learned that fear is a huge hindrance to this method.  If you don’t whack it hard enough, it doesn’t cut the vegetable, but I couldn’t get past my appreciation of my ten fingers and my anxiety about losing one of them.  I went back to my old method.  “Tsy mahay Rachelie,” Rachel doesn’t know how, they giggled.  I fumbled through an explanation the best I could in Malagasy, explaining that I cook in America, and I know how to do it there, but it isn’t done the same way and if I did it like this my mom would kill me.  I’m not sure if they believed me, but they definitely thought it was funny.  I continued to alternate between doing it my modified-American way and the Malagasy way, and by the end I was actually able to get a decent amount done the Malagasy way.

This weekend was filled with a million tiny moments of joy, frustration, and love.  To me, that is accompaniment.  Being incapable of doing simple tasks purely because the method is different is a common, frustrating, and important piece of my life here.  Whether or not I know how to do things the ‘American Way’ is fairly insignificant.  Overcoming the embarrassment of being more needy than I have ever been in my life is much more important.  Every day I have to choose to accept the reality that I don’t know how to do everything the Malagasy way, but that’s okay.  Wade Davis once said, “The world into which you were born… is just one model of reality… [O]ther societies of the world are not failed attempts at modernity.  They are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”  Accompaniment, to me, is working every day to expand my model of reality.  The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know, and some I never will.  It’s frustrating, and beautiful, and important, and it’s why I’m here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote by Wade Davis taken from “How Coffee Saved My Life: And Other Stories of Stumbling to Grace” by YAGM Alum Ellie Roscher. 

 

• The Good Morning Neighbors:

When I’m running late, the fastest shortcut to town goes through a neighboring compound and some skinny dirt paths before ending up at a main paved road.  Every time I cut through the neighbor’s yard, or they come to ours to get water from the well when the pump is dry, the children greet me with a sing-songy “Good MORning!”  (No matter the time of day).

• KTKT 

It was the day of our big Christmas concert, one of two large concerts we put on throughout the year (complete with outfit changes and other groups to sing during said outfit changes).  Everyone was there and an excited buzz filled the air.  A small girl, probably around three years old, watched me as we all stood outside waiting for the concert to start.  As we moved inside, she bounced over to me in her yellow and white dress that reminded me of Belle from Beauty and the Beast and said something I didn’t understand, then grabbed my hand and accompanied me down the aisle.  As I moved into a pew, she came with me, happily plopping herself on my lap as I sat down.  It was then that her mom, who happened to be sitting two people down from me, turned and saw what had unfolded.  She laughed and said she didn’t even realize it had happened.  After her mom explained to her that she couldn’t go on stage with us, the girl patiently waited for us to be done, waving to me from the pew.  Eventually she fell asleep on the bench and her mom took her home to bed.  I still see her occasionally and we always have a great time playing together.

• Sylvie’s Sister

Another little friend I’ve made at choir is the younger sister of my good friend, student, and fellow KTKT member, Sylvie.   Sylvie’s sister is probably around eight years old.  We met at a confirmation party that KTKT was invited to sing at.  She approached me on the walk from the church to the party and held my hand the whole way there.  She spoke rapidly, rarely stopping to ask me questions, which is good because I understood next to nothing she was saying.  Although I didn’t know what she was talking about, it was nice to have someone just talk to me like we were old friends.  Like the other young girl, Sylvie’s sister and I are always happy to see each other at choir events.

• Miary Crew

In January my friends took me to Miary, a village located about 15km from Toliara.  We went by bicycle through the beautiful countryside (a welcome calm for a girl who has exclusively lived in small college towns with her family of four who has found herself in a city living with a family of 15+.  Never thought I would be one excited for calm, but they do say this program changes you).  The trip was amazing.  (You can read about the legend I learned there in my January Newsletter—let me know if you want to receive it and have not yet!) One of the many highlights was the small gang of young boys I met outside the sacred ground we were there to visit.  I was sitting in a tree waiting for the local guide when they approached me and began to sing a song to me that translates to “my one love”.  They found out I spoke a little Malagasy, and they started counting to 10 and were thrilled I could count with them.  Then they began to count in French, which I am finally able to do (although my pronunciation is TERRIBLE).  Next I counted in English.  Their faces lit up even more, and they asked me to repeat it over and over again until they perfected it.  Even at the end of my visit, they sent me away counting.

• Ricardo

Ricardo, better known as ‘Rica’ or just simply ‘Ca’, is the son of my host sister and the youngest child currently living at the compound.  He was 1 ½ and toddling around unsteadily when I first arrived, and now he’s two and keeping up with his big brother!  His favorite activity used to be coming up to me for a hug and then biting me, and is now standing outside the door while I am in the bathroom and yelling my name until I come out.  People here pronounce my name the French way, and my family calls me ‘Rashellie’, but since I arrived just when he was beginning to speak, Rica calles me ‘Shellay’, usually with a strong emphasis on the ending.  “Shell-AY! Shell-AY!”  he calls every time he sees me, “Shellayko!” (My Shellay).

• Nayel

Nayel was probably my first friend here.  He is the son of another host sister and is WAY too cute for his own good, and he knows it.  His favorite activities include playing guitar with me and asking how Jessie (my stuffed animal) is doing.  He also likes to take my things and hide them when he is mad at me, usually because I tell him I can’t play guitar because I have to teach.  He then grabs my nearest possession that seems important, like my phone or keys, and stands a few feet away teasingly asking, “Mila?”  (Do you need it?)  and I pretend like I don’t until he’s let down his guard enough for me to leap up and grab it, but if I’m unsuccessful it ends with me chasing him around the yard.  One time he tried to do a roundhouse kick and landed flat on his face.  Luckily he’s a trooper and bounced right back up, ready to try again.  I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard.

• KC

I already wrote about KC in my most recent newsletter, but I could probably write a book about how much I love her.  She is the daughter of my host brother.  KC doesn’t live here regularly, but they have visited a time or two, most recently for a month around the New Year’s celebration.  That’s when we became the best of friends.  She’s the same age as Nayel, four, and has short curly hair her mom ties into ten tiny buns on her head.  I’m about the same age as her mom, and in Malagasy culture you call people the same age as your mom ‘mama,’ so KC very quickly took to calling me mama.  By my birthday, most of the family picked up on it, teasingly telling me “Joyeux Anniversaire Mama i KC!”  (Happy Birthday KC’s mom!  Very confusing considering that is also what they call her actual mother).  KC likes to ride on my shoulders and tell me where to go, only to change directions after a few steps.  When I lay on a mat to lesson plan, I can always count on her joining me by laying on top of my back.  She also likes to pick a small fruit (that’s name I forgot) from a tree in our yard for me.  It kind of tastes like a mix of apple and a really weird cheese, but for KC I will eat it.

This list in no way includes every single child that has managed to make a hard time easier or an already good day brighter; in fact, it doesn’t even include all the children I live with.  I am so fortunate that, while I teach mostly adults here, I have not lacked opportunities to play with my favorite age group!

I had a snack, a pen, a journal, and two hours to kill before my next class, so I hopped on my bike and headed to a park by the beach.  I sat on a bench and wrote and wrote.  I wrote about a wide range of topics that included anything and everything that popped in my head.  I wrote about my excitement for my parents’ upcoming visit.  I wrote about my ever-growing frustration with patriarchal societies.  I  wrote about my teaching experience at the Lutheran high school that morning, where my 15 year old student asked me the English word for ‘Sugar Daddy’ right as my co-teacher, who I haven’t seen since my first day at the school in October, walked by the classroom (luckily he just did a quick double-take and kept walking).  Finally, I wrote about how I had nothing to write.  Nothing to write for my blog, that is.  Writing in my journal is easy.  I just write whatever crazy thought pops in my head and get to re-read it later, laugh, and think, Thank God no one will ever read this nonsense.  Blogging is harder.  Virtually anyone can access it and read what is going on in my brain while simultaneously forming assumptions about this complicated and beautiful world I’ve found myself in.  It’s a lot of pressure for someone who, as a friend correctly pointed out at orientation after only a week of knowing me, always wants to make sure people understand exactly what I mean (a problem I have encountered a time or two in a country where my language skills are very basic, but that’s a whole other topic).  I’ve found it’s more natural for me to tell stories in person where I can interact face-to-face and have a back and forth conversation, clarifying things I don’t articulate well the first time through.  Blogs don’t work that way.  Writing blogs was a fluid process at first.  I found I could easily write about struggle and lessons learned with this life was so new and different.  Now, it’s becoming routine.  Normal.  I don’t stop and stare at mass goat crossings on the street on my way to school.  I figured out how to buy bananas, and I don’t even rehearse the conversation in my head ten plus times before approaching the stand anymore.  Instead of hyperventilating when a flying cockroach twice the size of my thumb decides he wants to have a sleepover, I calmly grab my broom and get in some batting practice swatting him out of the room.  It’s difficult to think of what to write when everything that used to seem so astonishing seems so ordinary.  At the same time, my thoughts and feelings about this country and what I’m learning and living here have become increasingly intense and complex.  Sifting through the mess of thoughts and feelings taking up every inch of my brain is a daunting task, and then to articulate those thoughts and feelings in an appropriate and meaningful way?  Seemingly impossible.  My computer houses a large catalogue of half-drafts of blogs that don’t amount to anything, but forming a cohesive piece hasn’t happened in quite a while.  As I wrote about this problem in my journal, I started to think about the blogs I’ve written before.  Almost all of them are centered around a theme and include stories and my interpretation of how those stories fit the theme (even as I write this blog, I realize I’m subconsciously following that same blueprint).  That was when I realized: maybe it’s not always my job to interpret.  It’s not always my job to solve problems.  But it is my job to share my stories.  It is my job be authentic, and I can’t be authentic if I’m silent (let’s be real, we all know muteness is not a part of my personality).  As I put a period on the sentence in my journal vowing to just write, without worrying about any formula or expectations, a small girl who couldn’t have been older than 18 months toddled toward me, mouth stretched into a giant smile and arms wide open.  I smiled and greeted her happily, and she took my pen out of my hand.  I held out my notebook and nodded encouragingly.  She put pen to paper, slowly at first, and then deliberately and thoughtfully marking up down and around the page, even turning the pages to make her mark throughout the journal and in my mind.

The majority of my student teaching semester was at a preschool, and my primary role with curriculum was to increase activity in the writing center.  A developmentally appropriate writing center for preschool involves meeting children where they are in the stages of writing.  It doesn’t start with the expectation of forming sentences, words, or even letters.  Depending on the child, the first goal might be as simple as putting pencil (or crayon or colored pencil or marker) to paper.  I found myself frustrated and saddened at times when we first opened up the center and the children would refuse to make even a small mark on the page, claiming they didn’t ‘know how to write’.  The parallels between their and my refusal to write were obvious to me after thinking about the fearless young girl who approached me at the park.  I believe most of us are afraid of failure to some extent or another.  Doing something I am sure I cannot do perfectly is a unnerving task, but perfection isn’t the objective.   The goal should be to share my experience, to be like the girl who didn’t worry about trivial things, but took a stranger’s pen and just went for it without fear of the outcome (although I don’t think that thievery will be my method).  Even as I conclude this blog, I am tempted to leave it in a folder in my computer never to be seen again.  However, I think it’s important to explain my recent ghost status on my blog, and to publicly promise to do a better job sharing my stories despite my fears of articulating these stories through writing.

     Coming Soon: Blog of stories of random children that have approached me, immediately brightened my day, and became my favorite people on this planet.  Some things never change.

When my family first moved into our house in Blacksburg, we experienced frequent power outages.  They were always at night and never more than a couple hours.  I’ll be the first to say I know about as close to nothing as possible about how electricity works (and I was eight years old at the time so cut me some slack okay), but I believe it had to do with our neighborhood being fairly new and our street still under construction.  I loved when the power went out.  Coming home late at night from wherever we had been, hitting the garage door button, being confused for a moment before realizing the power was out once again, was all a welcome surprise for me.  I never thought about exactly why I enjoyed it so much.  Maybe it was the break from the predictable routine that life can become.  Maybe it was getting to eat dinner by candle light.  Maybe because the lack of artificial light causes people to be more in-tune with their bodies.  Whatever the reason, or reasons, I found these quick bursts of power outages to be both leisurely and fascinating.  As time went on they became less and less frequent, eventually stopping altogether, other than ones that we all experience from a bad storm.  I never did lose that appreciation of a power outage though.

Last Saturday, I started the day in a particularly good mood.  The Madagasgal’s first retreat was just a few days away, I had plans for the day to buy a Secret Santa gift for the event, and I was feeling optimistic.  After my typical morning routine, I sat in my favorite reading spot and opened my book while I waited for my friends to arrive.  We left for the market for the perfect gift to represent Toliara.  I had something particular in mind, a fabric that is popular throughout Madagascar but Mama insisted is most worn and appreciated in Toliara.  Many of these fabrics, or lamba hoany’s, have a meaningful script printed across the bottom.  As indecisive as I am, I was expecting to spend all morning searching for the right one.  In reality, the very first one we looked at was perfect.  So perfect, there was no need to continue looking.  Izay mahavangivangy tian-kavanana it read, We love our guests as if they are family.

We spent the rest of the morning wandering the market picking up a few necessities.  One of those things for me was a pen.  We stopped at a stand for me to buy one, and after looking through them all, I picked one out and went to pay.  Unfortunately, I was just shy of having enough small bills to buy it and the vendor didn’t have change.  Expecting to be turned away, I started to put the pen down when she spoke quickly to my friends in Malagasy.  She told them is was no problem, I could give her the small bills I did have and stop by with the rest of it the next time I was at the market.  I was shocked.  This woman gave me what I needed and, without knowing me beyond possibly seeing me around the market, entrusted me to come back at some unspecified time in the future to pay her the rest.  In America, I could see this maybe happening at a mom and pop store in a small town with a regular customer, but in a city like Toliara with a stranger?  Forget it.

When we finished at the market, I headed home for lunch, expecting to eat just Mama and I as usual, but I was surprised to see not two, but eight plates around the table, a wide variety of food, and even a bottle of soda in the center.  Mama, four of her children (including me), her grandchild, and two of her friends joined us at the table.  We passed the food around, and she chastised me for hesitating to dig in immediately, reminding me, “you are family.”   We stuffed ourselves with fish, zebu, greens, mangoes, and of course, lots and lots of rice.  They asked about my rice eating habits at home, and when I explained that I only usually at it a couple times a week and showed them the portion that I used to take (which now seems miniscule) they laughed hysterically.  My host brother was surprised to learn we don’t drink rano apango in America, which is made by boiling water in the used rice pot with the rice that has burnt to the edges and is highly regarded in Malagasy culture.  ‘Family Dinner’ has always been a peculiar concept to me, because growing up, that was just dinner.  Each and every night the four of us sat down together to eat, and on weekends all three meals were a family affair.  This meal shared by even a small portion of Mama’s family was such a comfortable and warm reminder of home.   

After lunch, I quickly prepared for church and headed to Katedral to sing with KTKT at the monthly ‘first Saturday’ service to prepare for communion.  Four readings, a forty-five minute sermon, and plenty of singing later, we exited the church and I waited to see what would happen next.  I waited because, while my choir friends always assure me I’m learning Malagasy quickly, I still usually have no clue what my schedule is in regards to KTKT.  My strategy is usually to ask about when and where we will meet next and what I should wear, and to not bother questioning about any farther in the future.  This started out as a necessary practice when I didn’t have the linguistic skills to probe for further information, and has become a habit because rigid scheduling is about as far from Malagasy culture as you can get; I can ask when we will meet the rest of the week but it usually they will either tell me they don’t know, or the plan will change three times before that day rolls around.  So I stick to asking when we will meet next, and find out what we will do when I arrive.  They said, “ndaotsika,” let’s go, and we started to walk.  And walk.  And walk.  And walk.  And walk.  I had absolutely no idea where we were headed, but it reminded me of a time when we walked to various homes and a hospital to sing to and pray with the families and patients and I speculated that’s what we were about to do.

An hour and a half later, out of the city and on the dirt roads, my assumption turned out to be correct as we walked through a field and were welcomed into a farm house.  I was quickly offered a seat on the couch, squeezed between the family and the KTKT president.  They spoke with the teenage boy on the couch and asked him what song he would like to hear.  He replied with a title that was unfamiliar to me, so as they sang I got to take it in with the family.  I would guess there were roughly 35 of us tightly packed in the living room, and their voices echoed off the tin walls and roof in a way that made the experience so different than in the massive church balcony.  When the song was finished a choir member led us in prayer, and then a woman seated on the couch began to speak, pointing at her son.  I didn’t understand what was being said until he lifted up his shirt and showed us a huge bandage across his stomach, and it was clear we were there for him.  He picked another song for us to sing, we said the Lord’s Prayer (them in Malagasy and myself in English)  and off we went.  An hour and a half walk each way in the ever-present heat and wind of Toliara to sing two songs and say a couple prayers, with not one complaint from a single member of the choir, just smiles and laughter.

Arriving home blissful but exhausted (between my morning run, walk to the market, and walk to the farm house I estimated I had easily gone 10-12 miles by foot that day) I opened the door to my room, planning to grab a book and relax, and flipped the light switch to no avail.  I paused for a moment to listen and heard voices across the compound, so I closed the door and followed the sound.  Mama and about eight other family members were all sitting around enjoying each other’s company.  I sat and listened to them speak, picking up on the fact that they were discussing the presidential election currently happening in Madagascar by the names they used and the passion they spoke with, usually my clues to understand when the topic is brought up.  Mama turned to me eventually, saying, “We are talking about..” “the election?”  I finished for her, and she laughed.  They talked for a while longer, then eventually Mama patted the ground in front of her and said, “Mama te mianatsy,” Mama wants to learn, and pointed at my hair.  Fun fact about Rachel, I adore having my hair brushed, braided, or played with in general.  I quickly jumped at the chance and plopped myself down on the ground in front of her.  She attempted to maneuver my slippery hair for a while, then clicked her tongue saying, “Tsy mahay,”  Not able, and my host sister took over.  She pulled my hair into a ponytail and turned it in on itself, the exact same way my mom did when I was young.  She continued to twist and braid my hair as the whole family sat around talking and listening to music, some Malagasy, some French, and some English (the kids were impressed when I rapped along with Cardi B in Taki Taki).  We spent the evening together, taking turns braiding and unbraiding each other’s hair, playing our favorite music, and joking around, all drawn out of our rooms because the electricity was cut.

When dinner was finished and it was time to go to bed I walked back toward my room, hesitating before I opened the door.  Instead, I moved off of the porch and into the open yard in front of the house to look up at the sky, a habit of mine when the power is out.  It would be impossible to describe the night sky here in Madagascar, unpolluted by tall buildings and beaming lights like in America, and when there is no electricity in our area the beauty is amplified.  Not a cloud in the sky, only a gaping black atmosphere dotted with an uncountable number of stars and planets that will take your breath away.  There’s about a million things a person can think about when surrounded by that much silence and beauty, but my mind kept wandering back to the message on the lamba: Izay mahavangivangy tian-kavanana—we love our guests as if they are family.  I can’t think of a better way to describe this day, this community, or this family than that.

You might not believe it if you know me well, but my alarm goes off at 5:22 every morning now.  This gives me eight perfectly timed minutes to get ready to meet my friends for our morning run and be only one minute late each day.  In America, I was used to running on trails that stretch for miles under canopies of trees that I swear look different every time, changing from a bright green after a good summer rain, to vivid reds, yellows, and oranges in the fall, to barren but serene in the winter.  In Toliara, I run around a track at a nearby stadium.  After two months of this, it became harder and harder to push myself around the 400m oval.  I enjoy having a familiar route, but even though they are the same distance, something about running in a circle 16 times just doesn’t do it for me the same way running the Greenway in Boone from end to end does.  My runs have been much shorter than they used to be, and one day I was feeling particularly down about the whole thing—feeling like a failure not only because of the length of my runs but also because my motivation to continue shrinks every day.

So even though I only planned on running eight laps on a particularly sunny day, I forced myself around the track 12 times: a distance I would have been disappointed in myself for a few short months ago, but was much farther than I cared to run that day.  I did it, but I still felt that pit of failure, because it wasn’t as much as I ran before I was in a boot this summer.  So I forced myself up and down the stadium steps until my legs wouldn’t go up anymore, but I still felt like a failure, because I didn’t climb those steps as many times as when Pastor Kirsten visited earlier this month.  Sweaty, panting, and defeated, I joined my friend Manoa halfway up the stairs to finish out the workout with some stretching.   While we stretched, a guy roughly our age came and began to speak, first to Manoa in Malagasy and then to both of us in English.  Before I was a part of the conversation, there was nothing for me to do but sit there.  As I looked down at the track below me, I took in for the first time how huge it was.  From the ground, it just looks like a round dirt path.  From above, I could appreciate what I had just done.  Was it as far as I ran at my peak?  Was my form any good?  Did I go as fast as I would have liked?  The answer to all of these was a defeated, no.  But now, sitting from above and taking in the view, I was proud of myself.  When I got past the feeling of failure, I could take in the rest of the view.  Around the stadium, palm trees are scattered as far as the eye can see.  The cloudless sky was ‘blue as blue’ as my dear friend Haleigh might say.  Below, there are children running and playing, mothers carrying their babies, and hens dodging in and out of runners with their chicks closely behind them.  It was beautiful.  I was there almost every day, and I never just sat and paid attention to the world around me.

The next week, I taught at a preschool for the first time.  I was worried—how was this going to work?  Being my specialty, but in a completely different context and language than I was used to, made it all the more terrifying.  It was something I should be good at, but was worried I wouldn’t be.  I forced myself on my bike, down the road, and into the classroom.  I taught for a few minutes the way I felt like I was expected to, and then I abandoned that idea and let my instinct take over.  “Afaka handehatsika…” I asked Sia, the teacher (and director and secretary and treasurer and my host sister), pointing outside.  “Can we go…”  She smiled and nodded, we went outside, I had a blast, and the kids learned a lot.  I was deliriously happy afterwards and sat with Sia and her son while we waited for the last two children to be picked up.  She told me I could go home, but no part of me wanted to.  I was so happy to just be sitting there basking in the past two hours.  As I sat on the steps to the school taking everything in, I recognized the familiar feeling I had sitting on the steps of the stadium, and I never wanted to let it go.

When Pastor Kirsten visited Toliara, she came bearing thegift of literature—a large stack of books for me to choose from, since I had quickly torn through each one I brought from home and the ones she had already loaned me.  I asked her to pick out her favorite from the mound, and she chose An Alter in the World by Barbra Brown Taylor.  Along with a few others I chose from the pile, I happily carried them to my room, eager to get started on my new little library.  After Pastor Kirsten’s recommendation, I chose to start with An Alter in the World.  At first I was excited, because I now understood many of the biblical references the author made, but after a while I got bored.  I didn’t understand what she was talking about.  What even IS reverence?  Who cares?  I thought to myself, resentful that this book had outsmarted me.  While the other books I had read had me turning pages at the speed of light, I thought I was going to fall asleep reading this one.  And then, a chapter and a half in, I did.  When I woke up, I shook my head and put it back with the rest thinking, I just don’t get this book, and moved on to the next one on the shelf.

A couple weeks later I dreamt vividly of home.  Not just home, but some of my favorite parts of it.  My family, friends, hiking, and the Fourth of July being the general storyline.  The only way I can describe the way I felt when I woke up was disappointed—not because I don’t enjoy life here, but because of the intense reminder of the people and things I have temporarily departed from.  Already feeling homesick, I picked up my Malagasy phone to find three texts from the Madagasgals, all wishing me a happy Thanksgiving.  Instantly, I broke down in tears.  I had no clue it was Thanksgiving, absolutely no idea until I got those texts.  Not realizing that it was such a major American holiday made it truly sink in how disconnected I am from the world I came from.  I spent the morning clinging Jessie (my childhood stuffed animal) and feeling like my heart was so heavy it was going to drop straight though my body and onto the floor.  Journaling has become my go-to reaction to homesickness, but it isn’t a guaranteed or instantaneous fix, and that day it didn’t do much for me.  I dreaded having to teach in that mental state, but there wasn’t anything I could do to prevent the clock from ticking, so eventually it was time to head to one of my schools and leave these feelings at home, or at least mask them for the moment.

During a break, I checked my phone to find a text from Pastor Kirsten reminding us to “be thankful even if a bit homesick.  There is much right in all of our worlds.”  I felt like an idiot.  Here I was, upset about everything I was missing: my family, my friends, my college’s dining hall Thanksgiving meal (you may laugh that that’s something I was so sad to miss, but Central Thanksgiving was something my friends and I literally counted down the days to.  If you go to App and you haven’t experienced it yet mark your calendars for 2019), mashed potatoes, football, all of it.  The problem was, I had missed the whole point of the holiday.  I was so focused on what I didn’t have at that exact moment that I neglected to take even a minute to think about the things I’m thankful for: my host mom always making sure that I am safe and happy, my host siblings never failing to make me laugh, my church choir always brightening my day with their sincere friendship, and yes, even for the internet café I find myself in every couple weeks to get a little slice of life back home.

When I got back from teaching, I gave An Alter in the World another shot.  I picked up where I left off, with the chapter “The Practice of Paying Attention,” but this time I did my best to understand why it was such a well-loved book by many (ironically, my friend Jessie, a YAGM serving in Central Europe, mentioned it in her November newsletter and gave it the same glowing review as Pastor Kirsten).  I read slowly.  I reread sentences that didn’t sink in the first time.  I stopped every couple paragraphs and thought about what the author meant.  It turns out, I do in fact know what reverence is, I just hadn’t taken the time to think through what I was reading.  I wanted to cross it off as another book read, but Barbra Brown Taylor wouldn’t let me.  She made me read slowly.  She made me reread sentences that didn’t sink in the first time.  She made me stop ever couple paragraphs and think about the message she was trying to get across.  She made me practice reverence as I read her testimony.

Reverence, it turns out, was what I was practicing when I sat on those stadium steps.  It’s what I was practicing when I lingered at the preschool.  I didn’t have the vocabulary for it at the time, but that greater appreciation for something I had taken for granted was practicing reverence.  Something that seemed so complicated the first time I read the chapter was actually so simple:  all I had to do was open my eyes to the world right at my feet.  The more I thought about it, the more I recognized the importance of reverence to the YAGM experience.  A common bit of advice given during YAGM orientation is “Be where you are.”  I had been trying so hard, and I wanted to bewhere I was with all of my might, but you can’t be somewhere if you don’t pay attention to it.  The palm trees, the fruit stands, the children running up and down the street, it had all become standard for me, and I stopped paying attention.  I spent the next couple days with reverence at the front of my mind, practicing paying attention to the world around me.  I noticed the bright red flowers on a tree I walked by each day on the way to my church and how beautiful they looked against the green leaves and dirt road.  I noticed the way the pus-pus drivers perfectly time their turns and breaking, maneuvering around obstacles in a way that used to terrify but now impresses me.  The more I noticed, the more I became in tune with where I am and stopped worrying about where I’m not.

Some things force you to stop and pay attention.  For me, these include a well-written book, the bright purple fabric of advent replacing the typical green and white draped over the alter at Katedral, and the sound of a horn blasting when I’ve become too confident crossing the road in a country where the cars don’t stop.  Some things are harder to notice, and can be easily missed altogether, especially after they become part of a routine.  It’s difficult to be thankful for things you don’t notice; maybe that’s part of why we all suffer from the age-old problem of not noticing what we had until it’s gone.  In one of my first blogs this year,  On Joy, I speculated that there would be thousands of small things that brought me happiness as the year went on.  I’m learning there are more of those little joys waiting to be discovered than there are stars in the sky, all I have to do is slow down and pay attention.

There are few things in this world I believe have the same power to connect people as music.  “What kind of music do you like?” is my go-to question when meeting new people, whether it’s in a casual setting or sorority recruitment.  I know someone who listens to Taylor Swift is someone I can count on, there’s no shortage of conversation between myself and an Avett Brother’s groupie, and I can always vibe with a Drake fan.  So when I was sitting in my room waiting for dinner one of my first night’s in Toliara and heard a Rhianna remix from across AFILOFITO, I was shook.  I immediately got up and followed the music.  While the kids waited for the water to boil, they were having a dance party.  I eagerly joined them, and for the first time felt like I was truly bonding with my family here.

Another time, I was sitting with two of my friends talking about life when one of them asked me what my favorite band is.  I stayed silent for a moment, trying to pick from my long list of favorites a group I thought they might know.  My thoughts were interrupted by my friend asking,

“Is it the Avett Brothers?”

“The who?”  I asked, thinking that surely there was no way I was hearing him right.

“The Avett Brothers.  Are they your favorite band?”

“You know the Avett Brothers?!”  I asked, still in shock.

“Of course.  If it’s the beaches…” he began to sing.

My family has been going to see the Avett Brothers in concert since I was twelve years old and absolutely no one knew who they were.  Even now, their popularity is not to the point where I ever would have expected someone in Madagascar to know them by name, let alone correctly guess that they are in fact one of my favorite bands.  I couldn’t stop talking about them with him, still in disbelief that those were truly the words that came out of his mouth and that I was not hallucinating.

Last week began with a call from my family filled with information about how life at home was changing.  I was reminded that the world there still turns with or without me and I felt smaller than ever.  The most devastating bit of information involved the decreasing health of and eventual death of my dog.   I was heartbroken and in pain.  I didn’t want to do anything but sit in my room and cry, but it was about to be the busiest week I’ve had here.  It was time for the Zaikabe, a national week-long gathering of choirs from all over Madagascar that only occurs every three years.  It was a huge deal, and so beyond special that I happened to be here this year, but I felt like nothing could distract me from the grief I was feeling those first few days.  I sat with my choir, KTKT, and talked to the members in broken Malagasy.  Each day new people in my team took me under their wings and helped me find the best places to sit and listen to the choirs perform.  I was desperately trying to enjoy the event but I was too emotionally and mentally checked out.  It was Friday before everything began to turn around.

I knew Sondra, but I hadn’t spoken to her too much.  We had mostly just taken quick selfies together and moved on.  Friday I got to the event on time (which is early here in Madagascar) so I sat down on some steps and worked on memorizing the songs for KTKT.  While I was doing this, Sondra arrived and sat with me.  She pointed at one of the songs and began to sing.  Sondra went through each and every song with me, helping me with pronunciation, tune, and memorization.  She even recorded herself singing on my phone so that I could go back and listen on my own time.  Eventually, she turned to me and said, “Ndao. (Let’s go)”.  As I’ve found with KTKT, I never understand what we are about to do, but when they say “Ndao,” I go.  This has led me to do a wide variety of things, not all of which I could understand or explain, but they haven’t steered me wrong yet.  We hopped in a pus-pus (a cart attached to a bike and popular form of transportation in Toliara) and headed to the church.  The whole way, we practiced the songs.  It didn’t matter that I still didn’t remember most of the words, it didn’t matter that Sondra and I don’t share a common language other than my limited Malagasy, and it didn’t matter that everyone around us could hear us singing.  We were just two people enjoying the music and enjoying our time together.  It was in that moment I realized that I was truly happy for the first time in days.

The next day KTKT was to perform at the Zaikabe.  The stadium had been packed to the gills every day, with an estimated 5,000 people in attendance.  I was beyond excited because this time, I knew the words to a couple songs and wouldn’t stand there silently on stage the entire time.  When it was time for us to perform (aka two hours later than scheduled), the stadium was still nearly empty.  It turns out, everyone takes Saturday off to go to the beach and explore Toliara.  At first I was disappointed, but when we began to sing the few people that were there formed a mosh pit in front of the stage, and their joy was contagious.  When we finished singing, we joined the mosh pit and watched the other choirs perform, dancing and having a blast.  Sondra stuck by my side, making sure that I was always dancing and involved with the group.  I stayed until long after dark, recounting the day excitedly to my friend Manoa on our walk home.

The connection I made with many members of KTKT can only be attributed to our shared happiness found in the music of the Zaikabe.  Sondra has quickly become one of my favorite people here and one of my best friends.  She makes me laugh harder and more genuinely than I have in a while, even when I have no idea what in the world she is saying.  There is never a dull moment with her by my side.  We spend our time at KTKT rehearsals glued to each other’s hip, and everyone teases us for how good of friends we are.  What started out as a dreadful week ended in pure joy, and I will forever be thankful for the music that brought me there.

When my mom said she wanted the next dog we adopted to be a senior,  I thought she was insane.  Losing my childhood dog, Steeler, after nine amazing years was without exaggeration the worst day I had ever experienced.  I couldn’t imagine adopting a dog, falling in love with him, and having him ripped away from me after a relatively short amount of time together.  That is, until I met Bear.

It was November 27^th, my mom’s birthday.  We were in a hotel for a reason and in a state I can’t remember, and we had yet to get her a gift (sorry mom, but we got that trait from you).  We all knew that she wanted a dog, no matter how hard she played it off, saying things like, “I just think it would be good for your brother to have one around,” and “A boy just needs a dog.”  In reality, it was easy to see that she missed having a furry friend around the house, even though she was originally against the idea before Steeler came into our lives.  We decided the most meaningful gift that we could give her that year would be to go together to the humane society when we returned home to adopt a new friend for her.  So we went to Walmart, bought a stuffed animal, and proudly put it in a gift bag, thinking that surely we had outdone ourselves this year.

She was pissed. It was easy to tell that gift was not what she was expecting or wanting, and she didn’t believe that we had honestly been thinking about it for a while.  But you get what you get, and after the holidays died down, we all went together to the humane society.  My brother, dad, and I went our separate ways and wandered around the kennels, spending time with each of the sweet animals and wondering how in the world a person could choose which one to take home.  My mom, however, did not have that problem.  She was instantly drawn to Bear, a nine year old shepherd/collie/lab/who-knows-what-else mix, and the most serene dog I had ever seen.  The two of them just stood, his head leaned against her knee and her hand slowly petting his head, for the majority of the time we were there.

The next day we left town to celebrate New Year’s, deciding that when we came back the next week, if Bear was still there, he would be ours.  We spent the whole week lying on the beach talking about what we thought Bear was doing at that exact moment, so when we returned to Blacksburg and found out he was still there we were thrilled.  We immediately signed the papers (two years to the exact date after the death of Steeler), waited at home for the call that our adoption was accepted, and picked him up the next day.  Those working at the humane society, while happy for Bear, made it known that they were going to miss him tremendously.  It was clear that he was a special dog.  Even the whiteboard detailing each animal’s routines had a unique request for Bear: ‘Blanket at bedtime.’

From the moment we took Bear home, it was evident that he and my mom had a special bond.  I would go as far as to say that this was his most defining feature.  He refused to leave her side, following her everywhere, and racing in a pattern from the living room, to the office, to her bedroom anytime he didn’t know exactly where she was.  I only spent a few days with him before I had to go back to Boone, but when I returned home a few weeks later that bond hadn’t failed in the slightest.  My mom went to shower one day, and she remarked that me being there to pet him meant this was the first shower she had since we brought Bear home without him sitting on the bathroom rug waiting for her to finish.   He loved us all and would never turn down a good petting from anyone, but if my mom was there, he was blind to the rest of the world.  Even three years later, if I took him for a walk and my mom stayed at home, the second I tried to walk him off leash he would turn around and race home to be with her.  The first winter with Bear, my dad, brother and I took him sledding.  After a while, we tried to put him on the sled with us, but halfway down the hill he jumped ship and took off down the road.  By the time we caught up to him, he was laying down outside the door waiting for my mom to let him in.  I can’t tell you how many videos I have on my phone of my mom purposefully walking in circles around the driveway just to see how long he would follow her.  The answer was the same as the infamous Mean Girls quote: the limit does not exist.

I was half asleep when I got the call that I needed to say goodbye to Bear.  Knowing his age and the status of his health when I left, I knew this was a possibility for the year, but that doesn’t dull the pain of the loss of a loved one, especially from oceans away.  The next day, I opened Rising Strong: How the ability to reset transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead, the book I’m currently reading (and will definitely reference in future blogs).  Appropriately, the chapter I read that day involved dealing with grief, love, and heartbreak.  Author Brené Brown quotes her friend and priest Joe Reynolds when referencing heartbreak, saying, “My heart can be broken only by someone (or something, like my dog, though a part of me really believes my dog is a person) to whom I have given my heart… The death of a loved one is heartbreaking.  I didn’t expect them to live forever, and death is nobody’s fault… But my heart is broken anyway.”

I’m heartbroken for Bear, that he was in pain.  I’m heartbroken for myself, that I couldn’t be there with him in his last moments.  I’m heartbroken for my mom, that she lost her best friend, and for my brother and dad, that they too lost a special member of our family.  Over the years we had him, various friends who had volunteered at the humane society during his time there provided us with snippets of his early life that allowed us to put together an outline of his story.  His first owner was at a minimum neglectful, eventually bringing him into the humane society with a giant gash on his side and claiming he was mauled by a bear (this story was his namesake).  Another family took him home after a while, but brought him back after two short months because he wasn’t compatible with the dog they already had.  While he didn’t lead an easy life, Bear was the most gentle and loving creature I have ever met.  Being with him was calming; he always knew exactly when you needed him around.  Death may be a part of life, but it seems unfair that, after the difficult life he lead, we had to lose him after only a few years.  I mourn him now, and I’ll surely mourn him when I arrive home in July.  I may have been against the idea at first, but adopting a senior, and Bear specifically, was the best decision my family has ever made.

One of my goals for this year is to read the bible in its entirety.  As a cradle Christian, I’m familiar with the highlights and listen to the readings at church every week, but I’ve never actually read it through on my own time.  I’ve wanted to fully read it in the past, but never took the time to actually do it.  This seemed like the year to finally fulfil this intimidating aspiration.

Recently, I read the story of Moses, Pharaoh, and the first Passover in its entirety for the first time in my adult life.  God remembers his promise to protect the Israelites and works through Moses to free His people from bondage by the Egyptians after hundreds of years of slavery.  He calls the Israelites to set out into the wilderness to find their promised freedom in the unknown, with a pillar of cloud to guide them by day and a pillar of fire to guide them by night.  At one point, they are instructed by God through Moses to stop and wait for the Egyptians to close in on them, so that the Egyptians would know once and for all that He is the Lord.  This is no doubt followed by a sense of fear, dread, and regret by the Israelites.  “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness,”  they almost mockingly ask Moses,  “Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”  For the Israelites, the consistency of slavery was easier to deal with than the unfamiliarity of freedom.

I was deeply struck by Exodus 14:14 in particular: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”  Ironically, this has been one of my favorite versus in the past, but I found it one day scrolling through Facebook and never actually knew the context.  I learned that it is Moses’ answer to the peoples grumblings of facing their oppressor after breaking free.  The ability to be still is not one of my strong suits.  I am a doer, always looking for the next task, usually even before I have completed the last.  I am easily bored when left alone and find discomfort in silence.  These are all traits I knew I would struggle with this year and hope to improve on as part of the change in myself by this experience, but I don’t think anticipation of struggle makes it any easier.  This mindset is its own obstacle of overcoming itself:  I want to be able to do something in order to change this deeply ingrained part of my personality, but like the Israelites I am asked to be still, and the seemingly simple task of doing nothing is proving to be the most difficult of all.

My transition into this new life in Toliara has not been easy.  After facing a unique set of obstacles the first week, I was left mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted, and more than a little homesick.  The welcoming attitude of my host family and community shows me each and every day that I am loved and supported here and I go to bed each night reminded that this is where I need to be.  In the mornings, however, I wake up to another day of uncertainty, and I’m brought right back down.  I never know what is going to happen from day to day, or even minute to minute, and that lack of control and understanding based in linguistic and cultural barriers can be deeply unsettling.

Here I am, called by God to break free of my previous bondage: to leave behind my old ways of consumerism, independence, and everything else I’ve always known.  I’m entering my own wilderness, my unknown.  My freedom is not from slavery, but from ignorance.  In my wilderness I am in search of a wider world view.  Since most of my English classes have yet to start, I am left with nothing but time to question where I am.  Like the Israelites, it’s not time to move onward and I can’t go back.  All I can do is be where I am.  Sometimes being where I am means dancing in the backyard with the children at my host home, and sometimes it means sitting in my room staring at the wall, thinking, “What the heck did I just get myself into?”  Sometimes the appeal of the comfort of consistency in my old life, restrained as it was, leads me to question the call I answered from God.  After all, it would have been far easier to stay locked in my life in America and to never enter a new wilderness in search of a new life.  Like the Israelites, each instance of difficulty leads to me to question whether I have what it takes to make it to freedom.

I didn’t find answers in this text.  After reading it, I’m left no more certain than I was before I read it.  I am, however, comforted by the reminder that I am never truly alone.  The Lord is with me every step of the way, guiding me by the fire and guiding me by the cloud.  In the past, the pillars have led me to do: to apply to YAGM, to accept the call to Madagascar, to get on the plane.  Now, the pillars have stopped moving.  Through my struggles, fears, and uncertainly, God only asks me to do one thing: be still.  So I laugh through the struggles, I breathe through the fears, and I lean further into the uncertainty.  I’m here, I’m called, and I’m never alone.