August.

I won’t lie.  August was exhausting.  Awful, in fact.  I had looked forward to this holiday month for quite some time, and it grossly disappointed me.  I find it painfully ironic that my church declared August as the month of God’s kindness cause it was one of the more painful months I can remember. 

I had to say goodbye to our short-term team and realize yet again that I’m quite alone here in Zambia.  I had to watch the man I love wash his brother’s clothes for the last time.  I had to counsel a close friend who was utterly betrayed by the girl he loves.  I had to desperately pray with a friend who had run out of ARV medication that the hospitals would be miraculously restocked in the morning.  And I had to hold one of my precious students as we watched a group of men carry her sister’s casket into a truck.  Her sister was 8 years old and she was also one of my students.  There is no sound in the whole world worse than the cries of a mother for her lost child.

God’s kindness?  Some days that can seem like a distant memory.

This month was the perfect storm of circumstances that left me vulnerable enough for Satan to kick my butt.  It was the first time during my 15 months here that I’ve truly felt lonely.  I’m sure every missionary has felt it more than once, but even knowing I’m “not alone” in my loneliness doesn’t really make it better.  I was overwhelmed, and anyone who knows me knows that my automatic response when that happens is to shut down.  So I did.  And I shut myself off.  And this went on long enough that I started to hear the quiet whispers of how pointless it is for me to be here in Zambia.  How much easier it would be to just give up and go home.  How selfish it is for me to ask for financial support from friends and family when I could just go get a job in the US.  How inadequate I am to answer the multitude of needs presented by my students.  And somewhere along the way I got lost.  I got scared.  I started doubting everything I’ve been so sure of for the past seven years.  Doubt can be paralyzing.

But then a funny thing happened; I went back to school.

I walked through that old, rusty gate on September 9 and was immediately greeted with that beautiful word, “Teacher!”  I listened to students who couldn’t speak a word of English in January eagerly tell me all about their holidays.  I studied their faces as Esnart told them that one of their own had passed away over the break.  I watched them explore our new books as if they were treasures.  I looked at pictures on Charity’s computer from our first class in 2010 when our students were practically babies.  I heard parents thank me for helping their children and beg for more spots for other relatives.  And I realized how far we have come.

It’s so hard sometimes to see the change in something when you’re in it every day.  It becomes ordinary.  Normal.  You get caught up in the mundane and trivial.  You focus on the things that AREN’T changing, instead of the giant list of things that have.  But these first two weeks of school, God has granted me the gift of stepping back; taking it all in.  I have spent a lot of time trying to remember what our students were like when I first arrived last June.  They seem like completely different kids to me.  The way they speak, the way they read, the way they look…it’s all progressed.  We have become a family, and that means something.  I may not a great teacher 100% of the time, but I AM here, and maybe that’s all they really need.

It makes my heart skip a beat to think about what could be.  And it makes my heart hurt to think about missing the chance to see if happen.

There are a lot of uncertainties in my life, and that scares me.  I don’t know how long I’m going to be in Zambia or how many more “Augusts” I’m going to have.  I don’t know why God called me to this place when others are called to stay in the comfort of their own backyard.  But God recently blessed me with one certainty that I’m choosing to rest in:  No matter what, I will never get to the end of my life and regret “wasting” it in Zambia.  It’s just not possible.  Sure, maybe there will be a day when I feel like I truly can do more for these beautiful children by being back in the US, but until then, being here will never be pointless.  It could never be the wrong choice.  How could anyone regret spending themselves on behalf of the orphans of this world?

God’s kindness is real, and it is is mirrored in his compassion. The way His heart DOES break for his precious children all over this country.  It’s not easy for Him to watch little girls lose their sisters or children to go to bed hungry.  On the days when I get angry and frustrated at how easily He could fix the situations in my students’ lives, I’m trying to remember that maybe I’M His answer.  And although that feels like a lot of pressure, it helps fight the voice in my head that tries to convince me I’m not enough.

For now, I’m trying to rest in the truth of this beautiful quotation from Frederick Buechner.  “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” 

And for now, that meeting place is Luanshya, Zambia.