Hometown Glory

It is a strange feeling walking down the street these last few days. I am extremely excited to come back home tomorrow, but at the same time I am sad to leave this place. After ten weeks in Africa, nine spent here in Tubmanburg, this place has become quite familiar to me. It has become my African hometown.

There is a song by Adele titled Hometown Glory, and part of the chorus goes, “Round my hometown, oh the people I’ve met, are the wonders of my world.” And this has truly been the case for me. It is the people that have made this place a home-faraway-from-home for me. I’ll admit that the constant stares and being hollered at isn’t all that Hollywood cracks it up to be, but I will miss just strolling down the streets greeting the people as I go. Meeting familiar faces and getting to know the locals. Having the children run up with arms outstretched and the excitement I felt the first time someone actually referred to me as Dan instead of “white-man.”

Even talking to the young men on the mission is a bitter-sweet feeling. We were told before we left that building relationships would be our primary purpose in union with our pastoral work. And while ten weeks is a good amount of time to begin these relationships, it does leave me at a loss, wishing I had more time to get to know these “mission boys.”

And I never would have thought that I would make quite a few American friends while in Africa, let alone one from my very own neck of the woods.

Other than the occasional asking to be taken back to America with me, I’ve had a few others say that they will visit in the years to come. I doubt it, but even today one of the men said that ten years from now he will travel to America. I just laughed. That is everyone’s dream here, and I hope it comes true for some of them. But this is something that we must not take for granted being blessed to live where we do.

I pray that at least some these relationships may last, though, and that we will all continue to pray for one another. They all ask when I’ll be back to Liberia. Maybe one day I’ll return to my “African hometown.” If I have learned anything in these past few years it is that you really never know where God will lead you next. But as for now, all I know is that my next stop is home…

-Dan
written 08/16/11