the loss of an old life, a birth of a new one

This is the Africa I last remember! It is funny how six months later, I am finding myself already in a place of only remembering the "good and fun" parts of life there. The sights, smells and sounds of memories lived fully!

I was at church on Sunday missing our village church ladies singing unto the Lord! It made me want to take note and remind myself of some of those memories and think about them for a bit. So I will begin to do just that and be grateful for the time spent as a foreigner in a far away continent!

Beginning list of things missed in Jos, Nigeria

1. Village church worship

2. walking in the market and choosing something to eat with only a few choices in front of me

3. being such a foreigner allowed me the deepness in friendships to reveal themselves early on

4. evening times spent as a family playing games

5. naturally living out biblical commands

6. simplicity in schedule

7. ah, one of my favorites - their German white cheddar cheese blocks! yum, yum

8. the warmth (man is it cold here)

9. I guess the familiarity of being a foreigner and automatically being different than those around you

This is just the beginning and I am so glad for those experiences as I am also glad for the ones before me not yet lived! There is a lot of life in me and a lot to give. John and I talk about how different we are now. People on the outside might not see the differences right away, but they are there and I am confident that the changes are to prepare us for what is yet to come.

With that, I move forward missing what is gone but anticipating what is yet to come. I choose to grab on to this new day and live it! Death is a part of life. The death of what was - the death of an old self, an old relationship, of what you thought something was meaning, maybe even a death of a perception, etc... I am sure we can all fill in that list with our own deaths. I really do believe that the better we learn to handle death, the better we are able to live the life in front of us without missing those moments, those brief but always available moments to serve the person in front of my face!