Song of Africa

[Good Morning!  We are back in Arizona, safe and sound . . . and completely different people from the ones who left here 2 weeks ago yesterday.  I've not been able to post much in the past few days, but I promise I will catch you up over this week, so keep checking back.  I wrote this piece on Sabbath evening but the internet would not let me post it.  Out of habit, I am posting first thing after breakfast, but will have to update with pictures later this evening.]

“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

I love this quote from Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa.  I read the book years ago and fell in love with Africa from this description.  I wanted to know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African moon.  Of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces.  I wanted the air over the plain to quiver with a color that I had on and for the children to invent a game with my name in it.  I wanted to see the full moon throw a shadow over the path that was like me, and for the eagles to look out for me.  I wanted to make a difference in such a way that even the land would know me and what I believed . . . or more to the point, in Whom I believed.

Tonight, I can say I know a song of Africa.  I have seen the giraffe and the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the brick layers and corn pickers and path sweepers.  I have seen and felt the effects of the air blowing over the plain and the Falls and heard the children’s inventive games with someone’s name in them, if not mine.  The full moon has thrown a shadow over the dirt path that was like me, and I hope the eagles of Zambia and Botswana are looking out for me.  I know a song of Africa.

But if I know a song of Africa, of the elephants and the zebras, of the children singing about Jesus, of the villages and churches, of the taxi drivers and bus drivers, does Africa know a song of me?  That is the real question.  What have I done to make Africa remember me the way I will remember Africa?  Who did I talk with, listen to, share with in such a way that they will miss me when I’m gone?  And who will know more about Jesus because our paths crossed one week in March 2013 under the hot African sun?

After church this afternoon, a woman came up to me and said she had not seen me at the church before.  “I’ve missed you,” she said.  I told her my role on this trip, to step back and observe, to listen to what others are saying and doing and to write their stories so others will know what we did here this week.  She said she would look for me at the afternoon meeting and I said I’d do the same.  As chance would have it (or maybe not), we did see each other again, after the last meeting.  She came and found me on the bus.  I told her I loved her music (she had sung in one of the choirs that performed in the afternoon) and she said “I will miss you.”  We said we would pray for each other and would see each other in heaven some day.

“I will miss you.”  That’s a concept I am unfamiliar with coming from a stranger, and yet one that has touched my heart here.  This woman, a stranger to me until today, told me that she had missed seeing me earlier.  At first I puzzled over what she meant, but after considering it a few moments, I realized that it was true.  We had missed an opportunity to get to know each other.  And yet I know I won’t forget her.  I have missed her.  But we will see each other again, most likely not on this earth but in a better place where there will be no missing each other.  I know a song of Africa.  Does Africa know a song of me?