Learning Stuff

My wife and her four skirted traveling sisters are on their way home... or soon will be. 6 AM in Manzini, and so they're about ready to start their last day and their long weary flight westward.

I've learned a lot this last week-and-a-half. I've learned that....

• Laundry does not fold itself. In fact, folding seems to be a full time job.
• It's best to be compassionate when your daughter is crying about missing her mother. "Buck up pilgrim" doesn't go over well. 
• It's hard when one of us is gone. I'm usually the one gone, so I don't usually notice.
• I really miss Mhlosheni.

This caused me to think about "learning" in other contexts, too.

Lot's of people  have asked me "What is she doing there?" I find it hard to explain, because it's not what people seem to expect. I usually start with what we're NOT doing. We're not building houses... we're not building roads.... we're not teaching children... or making converts...

What I come back to again and again is that we're learning.

We're learning how to be hands and feet from friends who are really good at it. We're learning how to be love without putting conditions on love... and how to be receive love with grace and thanks. We're learning how to let a small neglected group of far-away people know that what happens to them --  whether they live or die, eat or starve, thrive or fade away -- matters to us.

I'm convinced that the best gift we receive from Side By Side and from our friends, children and family in Mhlosheni is what they teach us. The ADP staff, the community development workers, the children and their parents are our teachers in what seem to be lifelong classes in faith and grace. 

I can't wait for Joie to get home so we can compare notes.

38 hours or so away.

PS: Georgia says: I love you like a love song mommy;)- Baby Buttercup