Moving Boxes

I’ve been at this new job around a month now. I’m still without a home, living out of a suitcase and jumping from place to place- South Africa, meetings in Mozambique, partner visits in Leshotho, Seed meetings in Joburg, an agriculture conference in Harare… But this week I will finally move to Zimbabwe. I am feeling a bit anxious about moving to Bulawayo. It doesn’t matter how many times I move, starting from scratch in a new home and new country is a daunting prospect.

It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, people (including me) have a tendency to put others in a box they understand until they get to know and understand who you are. When that box is “white missionary” you’ve got some work to do. There is such a complicated history behind those two words. How do you begin to build your own identity? To be accepted and known for who you are as a person? I do my best to break people’s expectations, to varying success. I don’t wear “missionary skirts” and I keep my many heels and sparkly shoes clean and washed. But does any distinction I feel in my mind make a difference at all in the face of the realities of Southern Africa?

I talk with people from the city and they make some comment how I must be suffering because there is no AC in the room. They don’t know I’ve spent a three years living in rural places, no electricity, no fridge, no running water, hand-washing my laundry…  Do I set the record straight every time? Or do I just suck it up- is living with those assumptions the price of the history I carry on the surface of my skin? The price of a life of privilege. 

I’m moving to Bulawayo together with my female colleague who is from Lesotho. Despite my outward appearance I am terrified of the idea of moving again. My colleague is fun and outgoing and in 3 days she’ll probably have made 10 friends who are all cooler than me! In three days I’ll probably be alone in my apartment with a cup of tea, wishing I at least had my cat to keep my company.

This song by Audrey Assad reads like a poem, a prayer, and a heartfelt cry.

   From the love of my own comfort

From the fear of having nothing

From a life of wordly passion

Deliver me o God

   From a need to be understood

From a need to be accepted

From the fear of being lonely

Deliver me o God

   From the fear of serving others

From the fear of death or trial

From the fear of humility

Deliver me o God

   And I shall not want

No I shall not want

When I taste your goodness

I shall not want

When I taste your goodness

I shall not want.