Leaving Home to Come Home

"There was no funeral.
No flowers.
No ceremony.
No one had died.
No weeping or wailing.
Just in my heart.
'I can't...'
But I did anyway,
and nobody knew I couldn't.
'I don't want to...'
But nobody else said they didn't.
So I put down my panic
and picked up my luggage and got on the plane.
There was no funeral."
-"Mock Funeral" by Alex Graham James

I have been back Stateside for several days now, and sometimes I still think I hear the kids, or expect to sit and have lunch with Solome. It has been good to come home, but I feel guilty for having a part of me that wants to be back in Uganda.

It has been a blessing to be home-to be with my family, see some great friends from many years past, be back in the mountains.

But I think about the kids, the knocks on the door and tiny voices saying, "good morning Nurse Sarah!" I consider my friends who are in university, and I wish I could call them just to say hello, stop by their campus for lunch and a hug. I remember the kids who are in boarding school and I want to see them during visitation days or spend Sundays with them when they come back to GSF. I think about my life back in Uganda, and I miss it dearly.

Today I turned on the radio and heard the song "Homesick" come on. It is a song about loss when a loved one dies. No person died, but it feels like a part of my life has died. Sometimes my heart mourns when I think I may never see these beloved people again. But then a line in the song became like a bold underlined headline for me:

"In Christ, there are no goodbyes
And in Christ, there is no end
So I'll hold onto Jesus with all that I have
To see you again
To see you again"

Although my future is unknown, and it remains a mystery if I will ever see my precious Ugandan friends again, some of whom have become absolutely irreplaceable in my life-there is a certainty. Jesus provides a promise of eternity together. So I will hold onto that truth and look forward to the day that I will spend with my Ugandan friends, my American friends, and my family-together.