"And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning"

I thought it was a silly assignment, courtesy of MCC: “Write what you’ve learned in your service year. Limit your answer to a paragraph or two.”

I wanted to limit my response to one sentence: “Please refer to my personal journal entries (all 300 pages of them).”

I have learned something every day I’ve been here--Africa has been an overly didactic teacher and I have constantly been playing the role of student, sometimes willingly, sometimes grudgingly. So now, as my year supply of malaria pills dwindle in the container and my Zambian friends have dolefully begun repeating and re-repeating the “How many days left now?” query, I will attempt to inscribe some of the year’s learnings. Not as a summation, but as an exercise, maybe even a spiritual exercise--for your, my, and MCC’s sakes.

I’ve learned to stop killing the spiders in my bedroom and the cockroaches in the kitchen, and eventually, to stop even counting them.
I’ve learned to squat-pee without toilet paper at a moment’s notice, unphased by the inevitable splashes (It’s sterile, Amy. Your lower extremities will get over it.)
I’ve learned how to wash my clothes by hand every Saturday without a) making my knuckles bleed b) making the clothes dirtier than when I started or c) complaining that the three hours were a complete waste of a perfectly good Saturday morning.
I’ve learned to make a Play Doh-type ball of the staple cornmeal paste and then proceed to eat that same thing every day for a year.
I’ve learned say my “Thank you for this daily food” prayer and mean it, even though I’m praying over the same food I’ve been praying over (almost) every day for (almost) a year.

I’ve learned to laugh at myself for not learning the local language as well as I’d like and forgive myself for not loving the people here as well as I’d like.

I’ve learned to detest a word like “poor” that describes Africans—-my friends and coworkers—-by what they lack.

I’ve learned how to find my own features in the face of the child with the smile on his lips and the bald patches in his hair . . . and in the countenance of the rich man, disfigured with stress as he attempts to clutch tighter to his own wealth.

I’ve learned to forget which of the people in the community have told me they’re HIV positive, because it wouldn’t affect how I’d treat them anyway.

I’ve learned how to think small, how to stop trying to change/save the world and start bearing with, or maybe even forgiving, the drunkards, the control freaks, the child abusers who come to my office or live in my home.

I’ve learned to pray as though Jesus is all I have, because that’s oftentimes felt like the case.

And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning

T.S. Eliot writes in Little Gidding, a poem about traveling to new places and home again. He continues:

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity,
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid . . .

Perhaps I came to Zambia out of a desire to do good, out of curiosity, out of a need to report on what I would find.

But this year has transformed—-it has become much more of a pilgrimage and much less of an adventure or even a mission. I have walked with myself, learning all of my faults and a few strengths mixed in. I have walked with others, learning that despite our differences, which run deep, we can live and laugh under the same roof. I have walked with God, and encountered new aspects of him.

I have not arrived anywhere, in fact I am more convinced every day that I will never arrive. But the journey of the pilgrimage traveler is a beautiful one, isn’t it?
And now more than ever I have my goal in mind.

My prayer here, at this place in my journey, as I prepare to board a plane taking me far from this culture and these friends, is that each of my learnings would come with me. That each of the little drops of truth that God’s rained on me this year would trickle down from my head and saturate my heart. And hopefully even make it to my feet, influencing my future paths.

That is my prayer.

And I am here, in Africa, to kneel. Where prayer has been valid.

Amen.