Created for a place I've never known

I sometimes have moments where I take a step back from myself and notice that I feel out of place here in America.  I'm not interested in malls or most TV shows or having the nicest car or many other things that our culture tells me I should be interested in.  During these times, I miss Kenya even more, because the people I met there might have had some interest in those things, but it didn't define who they were as people.  The children were more interested in whether you would play a game of football with them than if you had an iPhone.  My friends were more concerned with spending time with friends and family than with lavishing them with unnecessary material gifts.  The community I felt in Kenya was a dramatic contrast to the isolation I often feel in a technologically saturated America.  I could not get enough of just being around the people I met in Kenya.

But having a community of friends and family in America can be great, too.  Living over 5 hours from most of my family means I don't get to spend a lot of time with them, but I was able to this weekend when I went home to be my sister's Maid of Honor for her wedding.  It was my first time being a Maid of Honor, and it was a lot of work, but I love my sister and I loved doing everything I could to make her day as beautiful and stress-free for her as I could.  I would not have wanted to be anywhere else in the world this past weekend than at home with my family, celebrating this new chapter of my sister's life.

It seems that, no matter where I am in the world, I can find friends and family who make it feel like home, or I can feel like my home is on the other side of the world.  It leaves me feeling a bit unsettled, having my heart in so many places and with so many people.  But I think God wants us to feel like that, that we're never quite home.  In Philippians we're told that "our homeland is in heaven."  We can search all over this world, but as followers of Jesus, we won't find our home here.  I can taste a little bit of heaven when I get to shower my sister with love on her special day.  I can smell it when I sit around a table drinking tea and eating mandazi with friends on the other side of the world.  But I think I see it most in the love that just overflows from the children I met in Kenya, and that is why I always ache to be back there.  It's not quite heaven when I get to love and be loved by those beautiful little people, but it's pretty darn close.