Something New: South Africa Day 1

We stopped in Dakar around 2am to refuel. I stared out the plane window at the tiny crescent moon over Senegal, unable to do much else besides stare. We'd been on the plane for eight hours already and we weren't allowed to get off unless we were staying in Dakar. We spent about an hour in Senegal to switch out passengers and give the aisles a quick once-over with the vacuum. I was intensely jealous of the toddler a few rows back, fast asleep on her dad's lap. I too wanted to be asleep somewhere safe and comfortable. I wanted to be anywhere except where I was.

The sky started to lighten as we sat on the tarmac, Senegal being several time zones ahead of my body. The moon and stars faded as we began to taxi onto the runway. I watched it all go by, still envious of a two-year old, as my seat partner leaned over as I was looking out the window, pointed at the horizon, and exclaimed, "The first African sunrise!"

Now, it's the same Sun. It's the same Earth. It's the same atmosphere. I understand that changes in the air due to geographic location may change the quality of the sunrise or sunset from time to time, but really, a sunrise is a sunrise. You can take your romanticization of someone else's continent somewhere else. I ain't come on this trip for that.

See, and that's been a part of my worry for some time about this trip to South Africa. It's an immersion, a required part of seminary at Wesley, where you go to be immersed in the culture of a new place and to study how Christianity lives and breathes and moves in a different environment. You'll learn about a new place and you'll also learn about yourself. A new culture will resonate with you in ways you couldn't expect, but it'll reveal blindspots too. In order to let a new culture do this work, though, you have to be open, in a way. You have to be ready for the lessons. And it's hard to hear those lessons if all you're doing is blessing those rains down in Africa.

Could be that worry, which I've been directing at others, is ungenerous and unfounded. I've been worried a lot lately. No, I've been anxious. I've been anxious and depressed and it has been a long couple of months dealing with what's happening in my head and what's happening in my life. I wasn't ready for this trip. I'm not ready to learn. I've been running on all available cylinders for too long and I've been ready to quit more than once. I'm so, so done. I want to be safe and cared for and I want to rest.

But then, as we climbed higher into the sky, I looked out the window again and saw trees that I had only ever seen in books. I saw a landscape that was completely new to me, a whole new world that I, despite my myriad travels, had never experienced. It's the same Sun, the same Earth, the same atmosphere, but somehow, everything looked different. The first African sunrise of the trip spread out over my first real view of Africa and something wonderful happened in my heart. Something new bloomed.

And I was gloriously okay with where I was.