I Don't Want to Forget May 26, 2013

Tonight, I click through the pictures as mental snapshots flood my eyes. Unseeing the images in front of me, I am taken back. Sitting in my chair I am walking the red dirt road, passing pockets of chatter in Swahili, answering the calls of “how are you!” with “fine thank you how are you!?” and grinning at the shy smiles that answer me. I am cupping a warm bowl of ugali and sakuma wiki, grateful to know that the children are leaving school with full stomachs…today. I am walking past fields of chai, hearing a rooster crow on the hour, and drinking in the moist mountain air. I am surrounded by chocolate faces, their fingers running through my muzungu hair, and being passed the secrets of their hearts and hurts—with the hope that I would pray for them. I am futilely attempting to quiet the classroom, aching for these souls to know how loved they are. I am listening to tales of hunger and hurt that cannot blot out the hope of every child. I am grasping an orphan’s hand, smiling into their face, and willing for them to know that they are loved beyond measure. I am sitting by a window, writing and listening to the hard Kenyan rain and drinking in the renewing smell.

                I am amazed at the strength of my memories and fiercely preserving them in writing. I don’t want to forget the mere 90 days that will forever mark my life. I don’t want to forget the beauty of connection—the way that a shared experience –even for a mere 4 days—binds people together. I don’t want to forget the sound of the birds, the view from the tree house, the enthusiastic greeting of Joseph, our guard. I don’t want to forget the camaraderie that power-outages brings, cramming into a taxi, spontaneous theological discussions. I don’t want to forget because even now, almost a year after I embarked on the journey—I am still being shaped and changed by the people I met, the stories I heard, the place I lived.

                Even now, it is my responsibility to speak, to write, to let the memories come, to tell the stories that tug at my heart, and to fight to remember. I am connected because there is one body, one hope, one Christ that calls and conjoins his people. So tonight, I write to remember, to reflect, to rejoice at where I have been, who I have known, and where I am going. I won’t forget.