Grateful Fast Sunday XXXXIII

 

 A few shots from our car windows of the nicer areas of town that we saw when we were lost.

When we had only been here a few weeks, we decided to go on an adventure to see the Giraffe Center and the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage.  We got incredibly lost.  We saw parts of the city that Kenyans are scared to visit.  We eventually did see the elephants and giraffes but it was a long and frustrating day.  One moment of that day keeps coming back to my mind.  JTP was the driver and I was the navigator.  At one point, JTP asked me where we were.  I had no idea.  I couldn’t read the map.  I felt like it was upside down and backwards.  In reality, the top of the map was north, the bottom south, the left west, and the right east so it wasn’t upside down and backwards.  It just felt that way.  I have reflected on that moment numerous times over the past two months.  I have tried to figure out why I felt that way about the map and have come to some conclusions.  The most obvious reason is that we drive on the other side of the road and that means we enter roundabouts from the left rather than the right.  This really changes the way you deal with them.  A little less obvious is that when I am in a car here heading south, I really feel like I am heading north.  I am not sure why that is.  Maybe the pull of the South Pole tricks my brain.  I have lived in the southern hemisphere before but we never used maps.  We relied on our GPS instead.  We don’t have the maps for the GPS here so we rely on maps.

I feel like that experience has in some ways become symbolic of my experience here so far.  I always feel like I am upside down and backwards.  I can’t seem to get a handle on what way is north.  I am drifting but I don’t know which way.  Nothing really seems familiar.  It is like I am on a new planet.  When we were getting ready to come here people would always ask, “Have you been to Africa before?”  I never understood why they would ask that question.  I think I do now.  Living here is different than anything I have ever experienced and I am having a hard time finding my way.  That is one reason it has taken my so long to write this grateful post.  I have had a hard time feeling much gratitude this month.  Now that the month is almost over, I feel incredibly grateful for one thing in particular.  I know that no matter how upside down and backwards I may feel – or be – I have a loving Heavenly Father and older Brother that have created a plan to guide me home.  Their maps are clear and easy.  If I rely on them, I don’t need to feel lost.