Musings of a nomad

I cannot believe that in just 10 days I will be hopping on a plane and leaving Korr for good.

There are days where I think that I could do this forever - days where, even if I've been sweating since 6 AM and I'm eating mutton for the fifth time that week, that I am reminded of just how blessed and lucky I am to be here. My students...I will never, ever have a class as special, as hardworking, or as inspiring as them again. Ever. I feel like I'm finally, after six months, beginning to really get somewhere in relationships with them. That I'm finally settling in and getting comfortable with my surroundings and acclimating to the desert heat. That maybe, just maybe, my knowledge of Rendille is finally reaching a point where people don't laugh at me when I try to talk to them. Days where my heart feels so full from living here that it could burst.

I have family here. I have friends here - friends I dearly love and admire. Friends that inspire me to pursue Jesus more passionately and more faithfully. Family like my Rendille mama that invites us over for Sunday dinner and cooks us fried chicken because she knows mzungus love chicken. I have friends here that don't speak the same heart language as me - but we share a passion and a love for Jesus, and that is all that really matters.

To the Rendille, I am not Jamie Bauknight. When they ask me, "ati ah goobah?" or "ako keyya?" (what clan are you?/ who is your family?) I respond with "Ani a Sibiiryan Labarakwe" - my given Rendille first name with my adoptive family's last name. The point has been reached where the sight of me walking through town to and from school doesn't make people do double-takes anymore. Where instead of children shouting "Mzungu!" at me, they shout "Sibiiryan!"

This has become my home. And with that, I think, "this is where I belong."

But then I have these moments where the Lord reminds me that I don't actually belong here. Moments where, as I'm sitting in a classroom proctoring a midterm exam, I look around at all of my students and think to myself, "oh, right. They're AFRICANS." Moments where I am reminded that I am one of six Westerners living among these 20,000+ Rendille. Times when cross-cultural clashes happen and I want to bang my head against a wall in frustration. Days where, as I'm walking through the desert heat in the afternoons to go back and teach my afternoon class, I understand all too well why God didn't put light-skinned people to live in the desert along the equator.

In a sense, I don't belong here.

Yet God has placed me here...with His purpose and in His perfect timing. He also never said that following Him would be easy. "Denying myself to take up my cross and follow Him" doesn't breed feelings of relief or ease. There have been times where I've felt so out of my element it's comical. Days where I have literally felt like I'm being dragged across hot coals. He has changed me, stretched me, refined me, and then repeated the whole process over. Over, and over, and over again.

I'm not coming home the same person I was when I left. I may not belong here, but I certainly don't fully belong back in the culture I left either.

I've become something of a nomad. Just like the Rendille.

But here's the thing: none of us belong here. This world is not our home...it was never meant to be. The Gospel isn't comfortable: it's radical, life-altering, and involves a complete transformation of self. Because as you accept this gift of eternal life through Christ, you must completely die to your old self and old ways. It shouldn't be comfortable. Even after salvation. As Christians, we should never. be. comfortable. Because we are called to be lights in a dark world. As followers of Christ, we should be standing out because of the faith and hope that we proclaim....and that means being uncomfortable for the sake of the Gospel.

Christ never said it would be easy. But He does promise that our reward is to be sons and daughters of the Most High. As I'm preparing to leave one home to head back to another, it is a comfort to know that it's okay that I don't fully fit in anywhere this side of heaven.

May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant.

[Psalm 119:76]