Learning How to Fly

Everyone is born with wings and the power to do great things in the world.  It's just a matter of untying the strings that hold you back.  That's what I'm doing for the next 13 days.  Saying goodbye to all of the people who have gotten me here and to all the places that I love.  I get the wild opportunity to fly to a country where there are people starving on every street corner because the rains never came.  Where children never met their parents because they died of some disease that the Western World eradicated decades ago.  Where education is not the first or even the tenth priority on the list.  Does that make them wrong? Maybe you think it does, but I don't.  They know stuff that we can only dream of.  They know about taking care of each other in ways that some Americans can really learn from.  I plan to.  

Last weekend, I untied the string that held me to Trinity Episcopal Church.  Stefani Schatz preached about the incredible hardship of the people I am going to encounter.  Famine and poverty and hunger that we Americans can't even imagine.  I felt motivated to run from the church straight onto a plane, but I guess I'll wait until the 29th.  They prayed for me and then with many hugs and a few things to carry along, they sent me on my way.

I hate goodbyes.  I'm not good at them because I hold on too tightly. I want to stay almost as much as I need to go.  Kenya is where my heart is, but my heart is still really attached to places here.  And there are so many goodbyes left to say!  Denise, Alodie, Mom, Dad, Nick, Sarah, All Saints'!! I don't want to leave you behind. I want to stay with you! In a few days I leave Camp Galilee, my home for the last three months, and go to Las Vegas.  Camp will be a hard goodbye.  They have become my family in a way that I never knew could happen in just a few months. This place is holy that way. Then on the 29th, I get on a plane in Los Angeles and away I go.

Untying strings is harder than I ever imagined.  My wings are getting restless and I'm holding myself back now.  Slowly, one by one, with every goodbye, I get closer to flight.  My dreams are waiting for me, I just need to jump.  Maybe I need some scissors.