The end of the endless summer

Ok. Now the end is really close three more days and the conflicted feeling has continued.  For the most part I think we have all done a pretty good job of getting ready to come home. But I am so excited to see the ways that I haven't been prepared to reenter. Those aspects of reentry which are harder to swallow will reveal the ways in which I have changed the most. It will be exciting to see.  I hope I have changed in my reliance on things and people.  Less on the former and more on the latter. We shall see.  

It is kind of nice right now because many of the people who we have spent the whole semester with have already left.  And the two teachers who are left and the two students, Barry and Douglas, will leave on Friday like us.  So now we are waiting to simply fade out and do the same.  Also, there is the Evangelists' convention going on this week. A good chance to see all of the Church people who we have met in the past three months.  I have spent most of my time at the convention since Monday.  It has been nice to be a little busy and to be surprised by how much Swahili I actually retained.  The convention is like our synod assemblies only I understand nearly nothing here.  The evangelists get a chance to come together and discuss life and catch up.  But also there are these great presentations on things like the Church's response to AIDS and black magic.  The AIDS one was presented by our American friend Barbara.  The basic message was the she was that the Church must advocate and welcome. She said that she was proud of the way that the Morogoro diocese had welcomed these people.  The goal of Church here is to include as many people as possible and have very wide doors.  But what is really wonderful is that this only has to be discussed every now and again.  No one needs the slogan "Open minds, Open doors, Open hearts" because it is already happening. Now, there certainly are problems in the Church and society as a whole in welcoming the other or in having a place for the other. Kilosa is a great example of this and the general treatment of Masai.  Yet, largely, welcoming is simply a part of everything because people are more concerned about each other than about their own securities and junk.  I find it quite refreshing.  The Church is really even a place where Waswahili and Wamasai get together.  I have mentioned this before but where the Church is, there is a comraderie between the two groups.  They see each other as family-the convention illustrates this in the great diversity of people but the fact that they all join together as the Body.  (oh just thought-reminder to myself:write about the way that the relationship between old and young differs from the US to here in my final paper.)  sorry. ok.  But yes. When I get tired of pretending to understand what is going on, I normally step outside to find other young evangelists who are bored.  Many are around my age so we have many things common, and even with the little language divide, we normally have gobs to talk about.  Monday I spoke with this group about marriage in the US and about my time here and leaving and thier thoughts on Obama for about two hours in Swahili.  I find that it does get somewhat taxing.  So I left after a while and hung out with this child of one of the evnagelsits.  He is freakin crazy.  About three years old.  So we ran around like idiots and kicked stuff and messed with cars and things.  Way good.  Yesterday, I ran into Philemon and he had gifts for Steve and I.  That was quite good. Later I had a real good conversation with a very young evangelist.  

As leaving comes so close people seem bummed that we are leaving. I guess you never really know where you stand in these quickly formed relationships until the end is faced. I just really hope I get the chance to come back.  I thought I was sure that I wanted to stay in the US but I am not 100% anymore.  We shall see.  The evangelists ask about this a lot and they always say Mungu anajua.  Very true.  

In the evening we went to Rohit and Mamta's place.  It was a little hard to find as our navigator lost the way. ha. But we had such an incredible time-cold beer and soda.  Indian snack food and Amarula soaked mangos and bananas.  So good.  The conversation was amazing.  They gave us some great advice about grad school.  It is so good to have intelligent conversation-between the Americans it gets a little redundant.  Oh, and they live in Michigan for the time being and spend some time in Chicago so if the LSTC thing works out, they talked about coming to visit.  That is so exciting.  Well, I am going to go live my last few days here. I will try to write again. but if i don't, thanks for reading.  This has been such an incredible experience and I can't wait to share it with you all face to face.  Baadaye.