New Home in Africa

Thank you for all your prayers. 💛
After 8 months of waiting on God… we finally moved into our new home this week 🥹😭

Looking back, if it weren’t for our Norwegian friends hosting us as guests, another Tanzanian opening his airbnb to us at a sustainable rate due to our situation, an inspiring elderly Australian couple opening their rooms to us to store our furniture… we never would have made it through the past 8 months of “wilderness and wandering”.

We are grateful… to return to a community of local and international friends who’ve not only welcomed us back but supported our move… what could have been a hair-tearing, nerve wracking event, became filled with joy and gratitude.

On a heavier note —
this jet lag has been the longest I’ve ever taken to recover from.

And part of what’s made it harder hasn’t just been physical, but deeper.

A series of unsettling interactions.
Moments that felt unequal.
Moments that reminded me what it feels like to be “other,” smaller and less.

Strangely, I’ve never felt more acutely “colored” in a community than I have than this last season in Canada and Tanzania.

Microaggressions don’t always shout.
Often they’re subtle—
A tone.
An assumption.
A critique framed as moral concern… by people who feel that they’re somehow more educated, more moral, more ethical than you… consciously or unconsciously because of where they’re from, what color their skin is and where they assume you’re from, how little you must know, too.

And somehow, you leave feeling smaller, less.

To anyone who’s ever been assumed uneducated, villainous, or lesser simply because of how you look —

To anyone who’s had decisions questioned because someone else believes they know better for you —

I hope you know you’re not alone.

Some days are heavier than others. After three difficult incidents lately, with the 4th confrontation being yesterday, I’m reminded…

… that we cannot live our lives for other people’s narratives.

And actually, we don’t owe it to them to explain ourselves, to gain their understanding, to win their admiration.

We live them before God.

And that has to be enough.

At this stage in my life, I feel ready to let go of people who think they know better than us, who prefer to cast judgment than think the best of us.

How about you?