Tanzania Bound!!!

Every since we confirmed the news, I have not been able to wipe this smile off of my face! The Chachas are going to Tanzania for two weeks in May!!! I wrote several posts ago that if home is where the heart is, then home for me is spread all across the world, and that little village of Ntagacha definitely houses a big piece of home!

Though I am so excited to reconnect with family and friends and I can't wait to get a big group hug from those kids that I love so much, even more than the fresh mangoes, warm sun and beautiful sound of Swahili, I am excited to see me dream realized-- a working, functioning, Tumaini Medical Center, and as a registered nurse I will be able to help provide the medical care that this village so desperately needs!

Over three years have passed since I sat in that hospital and prayed and dreamed for it to come to reality. Over two years since I had to take a little boy with a nosebleed that would not stop over the bumpy, dusty road to a clinic 45 minutes away. Years since I walked those corridors, sat on the concrete steps and cried "Lord we need this medical center." It's been years and now it's here! We have a wonderful doctor named Ben that Mwita and I had the pleasure of becoming friends with (he treated our stomach aches and illnesses). It is here and I cannot wait to be there!

Though two weeks will be a whirlwind trip, I know I will enjoy every minute of it. From the hustle bustle of the Nairobi airport to the long, roving bus ride across the Rift Valley, from the smiling faces, to the bumpy dirt roads, the fresh pineapple to the rain pattering the tin roof. From the bubbling sound of Swahili, to the children singing their hearts out at night and I cannot wait for every site, sound and experience that Ntagatcha has to offer!

It's been over two years since we have been there. Two years since Mwita and I have seen the family we love. Two years since we have been to the place that we met, grew, learned and fell in love. It's been two years too long!

We are Tanzania bound and not looking back!

Train Tracks

There is a park just down the road from us that feels like a little bit of home to me here in Lynchburg. It is one of the very first places we explored when we first moved here. For some reason that makes it feel familiar. I love walking there, strolling over the hills and feeling the wind in my hair.

My favorite place in the park is where a huge train track bridge juts out over the river hundreds of feet below. It looks to big and powerful looming over the rushing water beneath.

When I take a walk in the park, I always go to that spot hoping, wishing, waiting that the powerful engine will come charging across...it never happens.

One day I was taking a walk and I heard the whistling of the train in the distance! I raced to the spot where I could see the bridge, sat down and waited. The air was full of the sheer power of the train, the tons and tons of metal grinding over the track. It was so loud that it filled the whole valley, it made me shiver. I waited and I watched.

I sat in that place, my eyes glued on the bridge until I realized that instead of getting louder still, and closer, the sheer whistles and mighty roar where slowly getting quiet. I sat there until it was a small hum in the distance.

The train must have taken another path, there must have been another track in the valley near the river, I missed it.

I sat there disappointed, I had so hoped to see the powerful show. But as I sat there I realized the lesson I had learned. And during a time of change for not only me, but many of those I love as well, I realized what a timely lesson it was.


Even though the train did not come roaring across the bridge as I had expected, I could not deny the untamable power of that engine as it's metal wheels clanked down the track. The sheer power made the whole valley hum, I could not see, but I could feel it, I knew it was there.

How often is God like that in our lives. We have a track mapped out for how we think He will guide and intervene. We sit, wait and watch until He comes across the bridge just like we thought He would. But so often He takes a different way. We can't see Him, but we feel Him, we feel His power and we know that He is there. He is just roaring across a track that we did not know existed. He is cutting new paths through the mountain and new tracks by the river. But His presence is undeniable. It gives us shivers as we feel His power, it gives us hope, because we know that He is near.

You can't see Him, but you feel Him, you trust, know and believe that He is near.

New Year!

Here we are again. A new year, full of new possibilities, new prospects, new dreams! I have to say that even though I LOVE Christmas, January is actually one of my favorite months of the year. It's a time to clean up, reflect and start again. What an opportunity we have every year! January always makes me think of motivation, goals and changes...love it!

I have high hopes for 2012, and as good as 2011 was, it may be hard to beat. Graduated from college, passed my boards, got married, moved to VA, started my first nursing job...whoa! But 2012...it's going to be even better!

I have quite a few goals in mind for this year: pay off college loans, become an RNII (my hospitals clinical ladder), become chemo certified, start pursuing my BSN. On a lighter note I also plan on becoming a great cook and having a potted herb garden this summer that I WILL remember to water :)

Though going from being a student to not was quite an adjustment (I didn't get off a month for Christmas...instead I had to work Christmas Day :)I really like the adult life. This January seems especially pleasant. I knew exactly what I was in for. I didn't have new classes, new clinical rotations or new instructors to get used to. In fact nothing really changed at all. It's kind of nice to have that. I knew that when I went into work that it would be exactly like it had been the day and week before. Not that my job is monotonous...it isn't AT ALL. But I'm getting into my groove and most of the time, I know what to expect. There are still some days like last Friday that I wonder what on earth I got myself into...but for the most part I've got my routine and I go about it quite well! I love my job, love being an oncology nurse and love the hospital I work for! Couldn't be more blessed!

One goal that I am really excited about this year is to collect experiences. So often I spend my money buying things, clothes etc, but the newness wears off and to the back of the closets they go, what I want to do instead is collect experiences. I've had quite a few amazing experiences in my life, but they are not enough! I want more. I want to explore every inch of my town and then beyond. I want to try foods I've never tried, go to plays I have never seen, and meet people I never thought I would! These are the types of things you remember when you're 80, not that beautiful red sweater that you wore twice!

I also have in mind to really experience each day. I have my husband to thank for this idea. The last 4 days I have been laying around the house feeling sick. I have a sore throat, cough and headache that I just can't kick! Let's just say that me, mint tea, and Grey's Anatomy have become close friends over the last few days. Today I was telling Mwita about all of the things that I wanted to do, but just don't have the energy to do. He looked at me and told me just to be thankful for these days to read, watch Netflix and just relax. The cleaning, organizing etc will be here when I feel better, but for now just enjoy your day. He is so right! Each day is something to be enjoyed! So often my works days fly by and once again I am laying my head on the pillow or like these past few days I have been sitting here feeling sorry for myself instead of enjoying the time to just sit, think, and rest. I really want to be cognizant of this, because as fast as my life is going these days, I don't want it to pass me by!

So here's to 2012. To all the joys, adventures, blessings and excitement it may hold! Can't wait to see what's in store. New nephew, working hard as I can, trip to TZ to visit friends, and more! I'm ready, are you!?!?!?

Differences

Worlds apart...but friends at heart...

“Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.” --Desmond Tutu

Something about this quote resonates within me, and has, every since I heard those words. Not only do I love the quote, but I have great admiration for the writer, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He more that anyone else, understood what the dishonoring of differences can entail. An activist and archbishop in South Africa during apartheid. His stand, however, was not for more separation, for more power for his own group, his stand was for “we.” Desmond believed that, “if I diminish you, I diminish myself.” He was not weak, though, in his love. He was an activist for what he believed in, he stood up and he stood out, often making him a target of the hatred he longed to end.

I do not write this, though, to give a history lesson of apartheid or of Desmond Tutu himself, I write this that we may be encouraged to celebrate the differences in one another.

I have long considered myself and open minded person. I have been accepting of people from other races, cultures and backgrounds. I find myself celebrating that type of diversity in others! It was those beautiful children in Tanzania that stole my heart- my light skin against their dark- I never felt more at home.

I was thinking the other day, though, about this quote and about differences, and I realized that it is the outward differences that I find it easy to love. But gender, skin color, ethnicity (etc) are not the things that define us, though a part of use they are not really who we are- it’s the subtle things that differentiate us, and it’s those subtle things that define and delineate. It’s those subtle things that I can find to be hard. Those opinions, ideas, personalities and dreams that we can disagree with and cause us to become undone.

I was thinking about all of the people that I have the ability to influence in my life right now. Family, friends, coworkers, patients, neighbors etc. In my profession I am constantly coming in contact with all types of people, from all types of backgrounds, with all types of personalities. My new goal is to be the person that celebrates the differences in others. I want to applaud the ideas, encourage the personalities and help those dreams to flourish! After all, my Creator did not make us with these differences to separate and alienate, but to work together as one.

I do not believe that we are to be blind to differences, however. They are not to be ignored, but to be celebrated! They are beautiful, exciting and good! Each created for a purpose, each with a promise, each with a destiny to fulfill.

Thank you Desmond Tutu, for standing against apartheid, but thank you also for the many lessons you taught. Thank you especially for celebrating differences and for helping me to realize our need for one another. You probably never realized that your words would resonate with an American girl decades later, but they have! Thank you for standing up, and standing out!

Today I am thankful for each person that has been placed in my life at this time. I am thankful for all that I have to learn from those I meet.

As Desmond Tutu once said, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”



The picture above shows a team created of differences- different countries, backgrounds, ethnicities and ideas all working together for a common goal- the children at the City of Hope.

Mtu ni Watu

"Mtu ni watu" is a Swahili saying that literally states "a person is people." The meaning, though, is that no man is an island, everyone needs the help and company of others.

I love that saying because it ties so much into my passion and mission for life. I want to bring wholeness. Wholeness not only physically in my practice of nursing, but also emotionally and spiritually. I want to be there for my patients, family and friends, to be their "watu".

On my orientation day for my new nursing job, one of the executives came to speak to us. He asked us who was on our "list". Your list is comprised of those people that are your world, your support- those you love more than anything else. We all wrote someone down- husbands, daughters, sisters where named. And then he asked us to stop and remember that every patient we come in contact with is on someone's "list" and if we forget that for even one minute, that is a minute too long. That speech is going to be forever ingrained in my memory, and I plan to keep it as the basis of my practice. Nursing is hard work, 12 hour shifts are long, and seeing ill people day after day can be grueling, but we chose this and we promised to take care of people that are part of someone's "list". We cannot forget, I, for one, will not.

I changed the title of my blog for now- not because my heart no longer beats for Africa- because it surely does, but because for now creating beauty from ashes is my mission. I love that saying- and it is my desire to bring forth beauty where only ashes lay. Nursing is my tool. Bringing forth beauty is my passion. Wholeness is my mission.

I am so excited about starting my first nursing job, and I have chosen Oncology. When people here this they moan and groan..."that will be too hard," "how can you do that," "are you sure that this is for you." I want to tell the world that I am ready, and I am not scared. Oncology is going to be hard, some days I am going to come home and just cry, but it will not all be sad. Some days I am going to see doctors tell patients their cancer is gone, some days I am going to see families hold hands and share their love for one another. Other days I am going to be the only one sitting with a patient as they say goodbye. Some days I will take care of patients as they lose their hair, hear bad news, and decide they cannot go on. Some days the only wholeness I will see is patients leaving this life behind. But I am ready. I did not say it will never be sad. I did not say that some days I will not be overwhelmed. I said I'm ready. I am ready to be a source of joy, peace and comfort. I am ready to wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm ready to cry when I need to and laugh with all my heart. I am ready to take on the challenges that this life has for me. I'm ready because I am called, I am chosen, and I have been made for this mission. Beauty from ashes. Wholeness and restoration. Oncology...here I come!

One More Day

This one I must dedicate to the two little girls that bring joy and light to my life, my lovely nieces Natalie and Amirah. Oh how I love being an aunt and how excited I am to meet Baby Lehman #2! They are delighted when I come to visit and absolutely enamored when I bring Mwita along, too! I love watching the concentration on Natalies face, as if playing were as complex as brain surgery. I adore the little squeaky voice that comes from Amirah as she babbles while exploring her world. Their giggles bring delight to my heart, and their smiles create an even bigger one on my face! Oh how I am in love with those two little girls. Pink skirts, baby dolls, and curls!!!

These little girls are the future, they will carry on the legacy of our family. They hold our love, but our hopes and dreams as well! How delighted I am in them, and how thankful I am they will be provided with the love and support they need to grow up strong, wise and beautiful. They are blessed, not only because of the loving parents they were gifted to, but because of the place they have to grow up! I am so thankful when I see how their parents adore them. So hopeful when I see the opportunities they will be afforded! So blessed when I see the books on their bedroom floors, and when I give them a big hug after having a check up with the doctor. I am so in love with these girls!

I feel devastated, though, that not every aunt gets to feel this way. Not every aunt is able to boast about the love and support her nieces and nephews have. Not every aunt gets to watch them come home from the doctor, vaccines given and height and weight checked. Not every aunt gets to pile her nieces on her lap and read them book after book. Not every aunt is as blessed as I.

Last week Mwita and I received some devastating news. A beautiful little friend of ours in Tanzania, about seven years old and bright as can be, will not be able to celebrate his next birthday. I cry for his family, for those that loved him, and thinking of Natalie and Amirah, I cry for his aunts, for they have been as fortunate as I. They will not longer get to watch him run off to school, look into the eyes of his mother as she bursts with pride at her beautiful son. His aunts never had to opportunity that I had to shower him with books, clothes and anything he desired. They did not have the chance to spoil him or to sneak him jelly beans when his mother wasn’t looking. They didn’t have the opportunities that I did, and now they will not. I cry because it is not fair, what if he was here, what if he had the access and opportunity that my nieces have, what if he did- he would probably be here. I cry because I loved his big smile, the dimples that graced his cheeks, and the way he bounded through the field to us to say hello. I miss hearing him scream Mwita’s name as if he were the only other person in the world, I miss that, I have missed that this last year, and I miss that I won’t get to hear that again. I miss him. I miss all that he loved, and I hate the fact that he is gone.

I’m tired of hearing about our economy, about how things “used to be.” And about how, if we just had a little more. We live in warm homes, eat plenty of food, and can buy something to treat a fever right across the road. We are BLESSED!!!! Oh how we are blessed…Please hear my heart, I am not writing to be critical, for I know for many of us, things are tough. But I write to inspire us to see the good we have around us! I’m thankful for the library that Amirah frequents that is right down the road. I am thankful for the cupboard that is stocked with Children’s Tylenol in Natalie’s house. I am thankful for the doctor that gives them the shots they need! If nothing else, may we look at the beautiful children in our lives, as they run and jump and play and thank God for giving them one more day. I’m going to give Natalie and Amirah an extra long hug the next time I see them! I am delighted to be their aunt, delighted by the opportunities they have and delighted that they are growing strong, wise and beautiful. Thank you, God, for one more day.

If home is where the heart is...

If home is where the heart is, well then I guess I am never home- or perhaps even better, I am at home wherever I am...and have been. The truth is, I have not had a whole heart in a very long time- for I leave a small piece in every beautiful country I visit and with every wanting child I meet. I left a piece in the country of Haiti- it was the first time I had left the states, and I fell in love with the land and the people. I remember how my heart skipped a beat when I heard about the heartache and devastation in the January 2010 earthquake, for a piece of me was there…

I left another part on a beautiful mountaintop in Yamaranguila, Honduras. Far away from civilization was that tiny town- and even more perfect, that tiny little girl named Marleta. She sat on my lap for hours as the rest of my team ran a medical clinic. I knew that my job that day was simply to be with her. On the cold rainy morning, I remember how her smile radiated. I still pray for her often and think of her even more, for of course a piece of my heart is there with her.

I piece of my heart was left in arguably the most beautiful place on earth- Ushuaia, Argentina. There I remember hearing about the missionaries who arrived there hundreds of years before, and sitting in a gorgeous field of daisies, I recall God revealing a similar call on my life. I also remember the wonderful friends that I met, and I remember the feelings of sadness when we were leaving, my heart broke, and a piece remained.

If you have known anything about me at all in the past two years, you know of course that a very large piece of this heart still lies in my country- my land- Tanzania. There are 90+ kids that I can’t help but think of daily, and countless others that I love, pray for and miss. In Ntagacha, a very large piece of this heart stays.

If you visit Martinsville, VA a piece of me is there- that is where my fiancé lives and the destination of many a journey south over the past few years. My wonderful new family resides there, and of course, with them is a piece of me.

If you go to Lynchburg a small piece of me will be there. Though not fully established yet, it is where I will begin my first year of married life. I will learn how to be a better RN and wife. I will be taking my final steps of independence. As I grow and learn to love- a piece of my heart will stay.

And finally- here I sit in Chambersburg. I love this town because it is where I grew up. Chambersburg is where I have learned and grown. It is where my passions began to develop, and it is where I grew into the woman I am today. Here a very large piece of my heart lives, because it is where me family is. My parents, sisters, brothers-in law and my two (almost 3) adorable and vivacious nieces- a large, large part is with them. These are the people who have walked alongside me on my journeys, and sometimes in front when I needed them to lead the way. A time or two they have even stepped behind, allowing me to go out alone and find the way myself. They are the ones who taught me what it really means to love.

And so I have learned that if home is where the heart is, then home is wherever I want it to be. For my heart is always beating, always loving and I always find a place to call home.