The Ties That Bind Us

To my South African team members and my ZA family:

this one's for you.

I sit in a room at 12:47 am. Tired and worn out, I finish my homework just in time to crawl into bed and get 5 hours of sleep. I will shut the laptop down, turn the alarm on, shut the lights off, and turn the music up hoping that it will drown out the thoughts that keep me up. Soon after, I will drift into dreamland. Half way across the world, It is 8:53 am. People are getting up and going to work. making breakfast. the kids are heading off to school. Two completely different times of the day and yet, there is something brilliant that makes these worlds collide. It is the people who live these worlds, these realities, that bind them.

You see, at one time, these people were together. sitting in a room, singing praise. standing in a shack, praying. running through townships, playing. & now these people and their worlds are separate. 8,593 miles apart to be exact. Sometimes, that trip feels like a dream. but I know it is not a dream because I have the pictures to prove it. I have the videos. I have evidence that says, "I WAS THERE." somehow, I feel as though I left my mark. or maybe it was that beautiful country that left it's mark on me.

the memories feel like short stories all bound together to make up a brilliant novel. A novel about a bright-eyed girl who believed that crossing the oceans was too far out of her reach. She had nightmares of the missed opportunity. but then God came through. he made a way. and this girl crossed the ocean and she was never the same again. her heart was now filled with more love than she thought possible, and her eyes brimmed with tears at the thought of returning. but she returned. and now she lives in a world 8,593 miles away from the life she used to know. she lives in a world where it is 1:14 am and she is now sliding herself under the covers into sleep. all the while, her family is waking up for the next day. eating breakfast, mangos and coffee probably.

these worlds will continue to be separated until one day, when that bright-eyed girl, who never stopped day-dreaming, will cross the ocean again. she will find her family waiting there. and with them, a small piece of her heart. and they will look through old pictures together and they will realize that the times before were not made of dreams, but instead made from the ties that bind them forever. and halfway across the world, people in the suburbs will be turning off their lamps to sleep, but we will be sitting around a table at breakfast. eating mangos and drinking coffee.