around the world and back again...

And now I have culture shock.

ish?

Dear Peter Jordan, would you consider revising your Re-Entry book so as to include a chapter called "How to Talk to People You Might See Again"?

That's right, I've completely lost my ability to talk normally with those that I could potentially see on a regular basis. Tour life has conditioned my social skills in such a way that I've become excellent at talking to those whom I know I will never see again. Why? Because I don't have to remember what they say. Call me shallow? Okay. But I challenge you to stay in a different stranger's house almost every night for sixteen months and remember everything you hear. Ooooooo.

Now, quickly, if you're looking back on my last post and wondering what has happened to me in the past few months since my children went home... know that I miss them and the team more than I'd miss my toes if you cut them all off. There's a reason I didn't "blah-g" about it... okay? Okay.

But now that I'm home for good (mini-jaunt to Asia for a month post-tour was lovely but totally postponed my "re-entry" period), I feel like a fish out of water, or better yet, that bird from Rudolf that swims: I'm most comfortable/I belong on the island of misfit toys and yet Santa has taken me away to live in the real world! I'm completely lost in my own town.

So if you've talked to me in the past week or so, the conversation may have gone something like this:

You: "Amy! Hi! Are you back now?"

Me: "Hi. Yep, I'm home, this isn't a hologram."

You: (awkward laugh) "Well it's good to have you back."

Me: "Yep, good to be home.... "

You: (feeling a bit awkward due to the lack of normal conversation, you're probably wondering why I'm not asking you how you've been etc., but truth be told I'm probably so antsy in my fear of what you'll ask/say that it hasn't come to mind to ask you anything, let alone how you are) "Ooooh-kaaay... Well have a great day!"

Me: "yep, you too, k bye!"

----OR----

You: "Amy! Hi! Are you back now?"

Me: "Hi! I am back! So how long have you been around here?"

You: "Um... well I've been here since 1823..."

Me: "Oh good, good, so is your family around here too?"

You: "Um... my kids..."

Me: "That must be nice to have them close. How old are they?"

You: "Amy? Amy? Are you okay, Amy? You've known me since you were 5, Amy? Earth to Amy?"

Me: (run.)

Observations?

From the first:

1. I probably forgot your name. OR, I never knew you and you just saw my name/face somewhere and are kind and brave enough to come talk to me and welcome me home. Either way, I salute you. I apologize for my memory failures/lack of social courage.

2. If I forgot your name, or if I never knew you, I probably feel like at some point I knew your name and you, but, I've forgotten, therefore I'm afraid to ask questions that I may or may not be expected to know the answer to, and am therefore afraid that I'll offend you by exposing the fact that I actually know nothing about you.

3. I get really excited when I'm uncomfortable in a conversation and it ends. Don't be offended, please, Oscar the Grouch was less grouchy when he said goodbye, and it was nothing personal, it was just him.

From the second:

1. I've reverted into tour-mode.

2. You may wonder if I'm really listening to you. Rest assured, I'm listening. The conversation may have gone on for a while with me asking great questions. I am definitely listening. I may even say a prayer for you before I go to bed, I may remember some profound truth from the conversation and write it down. No doubt about it, I'm listening.

3. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, I may not know you from Adam (or Eve).

So note: I believe I'm experiencing culture shock in an incredibly odd way. Please don't hold it against me that I might be awkward or rude or even stand-off-ish. I'm working up the courage to come and say hello to you, but I'm like the Cowardly Lion and I haven't quite reached the Wizard for my courage. I'll get there, the yellow brick road can't go on forever.

(Side note: If you know who I am but you know I don't know who you are, please, I beg you, pretend like you don't know who I am, or you'll just slow this whole re-entry process down and I'll probably pretend my phone is ringing or I'll suddenly really have to go somewhere or something will happen to get out of the conversation. Just so you know.)

ouch, my heart.

I successfully woke up at 4:58 this morning. I went to the boys room to greet, and went up the stairs wondering, "How? How does this go? How many times can I hug them before they actually have to get in the car?" Haha. Several hugs from ALL the boys and about 6 hugs from Jonah and Reagan later, the two piled into the car and I got in the driver's seat and said, "Who's ready to go to New York!" Jonah shouted out, "ME!" I wish. I stepped out and waved goodbye with tears in my eyes, as the rest of the chaps and I watched Uncle Craig pull away to the airport with two huge pieces of our hearts. Stacy and I then got in the van to start a mad shopping trip to fill all the holes in the children's suitcases. The combination of over exhaustion and being emotionally drained led to some very hilarious situations, for example... I laughed so hard I cried when Stacy didn't think Target was open because the lights on the sign weren't on. The sign doesn't have lights, and upon this realization, we spent 4 or 5 minutes sitting in the car laughing so hard I had to use two napkins from my bagel to wipe away my tears and blow my nose. We then walked in and noticed the phone books sitting next to the automatic doors, so we delivered them along to Customer Service. We also chatted it up with a man from the UK in front of the un-open Payless across from Panera. I asked him if he wanted to make the store clerk feel pressured to open up early with us as we stared in the windows, he just said that the store here wasn't as good as the parent store in the UK. Maybe that meant no?

All in all we had a successful shopping morning and the children are fully equipped to go home. Their bags are almost all packed, their things are getting in order, God is preparing all our hearts for the days to come. We can do it. We have been blessed with these children: to teach them and train them and love them so that they can go back to Africa and do the same to others.

Stacy also told me that the reason the pages in the book from last night were missing:

Some of the boys wanted to write Jonah and Reagan notes before they left. And they didn't have paper, but they had a Madagascar book.

I love our kids.

the end has come

The night should be over.

I should have been in bed hours ago.

I shouldn't be writing this right now.

I'm getting up in 4 hours to say goodbye to two of my children. And yet, it's like I can't go to bed. I sort of figure... that at this hour, if I sleep for more than 4, I'm going to get further into a rem cycle and it's going to be harder for me to wake up. It might however, be hard for me to fall asleep... as I've been sick lately and Nyquil makes the night so peaceful :) But I actually want to wake up to see the boys off in the morning.

I don't know how to say goodbye. I'm 24 years old and I'm about to experience an "empty nest" as I learn to adjust how to live without children that weren't mine in the first place. My face is stained with tears from this morning that I've been too busy to wash off. The house is a mess, there's a cake sitting out on the counter uncovered and the ant/fly problem in this house will automatically deem the ginormous platter of chocolaty sugar inedible by morning. It's okay though - we wouldn't have eaten it anyway. Just like the cake I made the other day... when I made two cakes instead of one. What was I thinking? And why do we use cake to celebrate? Fireworks are so much better. And how many people actually like cake? If it doesn't come with ice cream, why bother? And the ice cream just makes it soggy. But this is not about cake.

Tonight I went up to the boys room to say goodnight and I found myself climbing on the top bunk with 6 of the boys to read a "Madagascar" story book that at least three of the pages were ripped out of. The story made almost no sense, and it was part of a little kids mini series, so it didn't even end: the story just kind of.... stopped. It'd be like the story of the three little pigs, and the book ended on "He huffed and he puffed and he blew the." House down? What? No. The End. But the boys and I were nestled all in as I read the book, and I loved every second of it. Come Monday night, I won't get to read with them anymore. I won't get to climb onto the top bunk and be surrounded by six of the boys as I read a book that doesn't make sense. I don't know how to handle that.

I think about home and I am so excited to get there. I'm excited to sleep in my own bed. I'm excited to throw/give a ton of my stuff away (living out of a carry-on size piece of luggage has been lovely, and though I wish I had thought about the color selection a little more [almost all black....] ... simplicity is lovely.) I'm excited for Christmas at home. For freedom to do what I want when I want. Bathroom stops are no longer scheduled. Woah.

We are all ready to go home: but that doesn't mean it's easy. Aslan, it makes me think of Aslan. Is He safe? No, but He's good. Is it easy? No, but it's good.

Lord, give us the strength to get through these next few days. Help us persevere. Help us be strong examples for these little children we love so much, in our times of weakness see us through. Thank you for what you have given us. Thank you for Choir 35.

How many more?

Our tour has been incredible. It has been difficult. It has been filled with laughter, tears, pictures, "I love you Auntie" notes, and incredible growth.

Today I've been thinking about how this tour is so quickly coming to a close. We arrived here at Mirembe House on Tuesday - and counted joyously the high number of twenty days we had here together. How can it be only seventeen already?

Today Charity came to me and put her head in my lap and said, "Auntie, may you help me to remove from my hair the grass?" And as I picked the bits and pieces out of her hair I thought, "Often I feel like the mother monkey, if only I ate the stuff I picked..." Today I thought, "How many more times do I get to do this?"

Grace, my dear little Grace, has drawn me beautiful pictures two days in a row. On most days, her words are fairly harsh, and even in her playful laughter she tries her best to put on a tough tone. She's actually quite hilarious and very fun. She becomes the most tender, dear little girl when she secretly draws these pictures and does her best to get it to you - through others. Yesterday one of the other girls gave it to me. Today Harriet brought it to me. Both are covered in flowers and hearts and say "Auntie Amy" in giant letters, and "Grace" in tiny letters beneath. Give the girl a crayon and some paper and the rough exterior melts away and she's just a sweetie. How many more pictures will I get from her?

Brian, in devotions tonight, sat back with Stacy and I and did everything in his power to be close to us. He rested his head on Stacy's shoulder and picked up my foot and put it on his, played with my toes, was just close. Stacy and I both thought, "Brian? This is Brian? A bit odd for Brian... Brian?" But as he examined my toe-nail polish I thought, "Moments like this, they are special... and Brian, yes Brian, in all his rough and tough boy-ness knows that moments like this are special. And he's soaking them in." How many more of these moments will I have?

A few weeks ago the "Remember when's..." started flowing from our mouthes. "Remember when we convinced the children that salad was the greatest thing ever?" "Remember when we had to use a school bus to go to the 25th Anniversary Gala?" "Remember when we stayed in Uncle Gym?" "Remember when we spent an hour singing worship songs in the hall?" Often these are received with an, "Oh yeah!" from another and as we reminisce over the past 15 months on tour I am reminded of how thankful I am to have been on the road with these children and this team of chaperones. I know that it is all a part of God's plan, and the things that we've experienced over the tour have brought us to this time. Our beginning on tour was created so that the end could be even better. These children were brought to America so that they could go back to Africa. We have loved them, taught them, grown with them, disciplined them, tucked them in at night, prayed with them, sang with them, played countless games of Skip-Bo, Soccer, & matching game with them, driven across the continent with them, believed in them, and in a couple short weeks we will put them on a plane and pray that as they transition back into life in Africa the impact we have had on them will stay strong as they grow older. We pray that as they think back on their time in America, they will see God's hand stretched out over their lives and continually follow Him in all they do.

Time is coming to a close here, goodbyes are on their way. But it is good. We have been blessed to know one another. I have been blessed to be on Choir 35.

the beauty of names

Sometimes I find it completely fascinating to find out what names mean. In Choir 35 we have always known that Stella means "star" - and until recently, I didn't know what the other names meant. So I googled them... ah, dear Google.

So here we go, all of Choir 35:

John: God is gracious

Benson: Son of Benedict

Rogers: Warrior

Jonah: Dove

Reagan: Little King

Brian: Noble, strong, victorious

Derrick: Ruler of the people (Derrick has wanted to be a president for almost all of tour!)

Alex: Defender/Defending men

James: Supplanter

Charity: Love, generous

Brenda: Sword

Ruth: Friend, compassionate

Grace: Good will

Ritah: Pearl

Priscillah: Ancient

Faith: Confidence, belief

Stella: Star

Esther: Star

Deborah: A bee

Naomi: Beautiful, pleasant, delightful

Ivy: Ivy. haha.

Peace: Tranquility

Eunice: Good victory

I love it.

when two negatives don't make a positive...

Coming Soon to Choir 35...

New York City.



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