The summer after I turned twenty-one I packed a suitcase with a few long skirts, a journal and a camera and I made my home in a small village near a coastal town on the southern tip of South Africa. My one-room home made of cinder blocks and tin sat perched on the side of a hill gloriously looking out towards the African bush.
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| The view from my window. |
On the hill to my left, wild zebras and orange sunsets. Towards my right, rows and rows of banana trees. And in eleven homes surrounding me were fifty-five children-- orphaned, abandoned and infected with the HIV virus.
My visa gave me ninety days to become Zulu. My favorite house-mom spent two days braiding my hair into a hundred braids, I ate cow intestines and liked it and began each morning worshiping with Zulu song and dance. I begged my friend Sphume to teach me isiZulu phrases and did my best to pronounce the clicks like a local. I wore babies on my back, carried water jugs on my head and was not afraid to yell "Haibo! Ugu shiya!" at all cat-calling men. (Loosely translated, "hell no! I'm going to smack you.")
But, as hard as I tried to make Rehoboth my home, I caught myself homesick from time to time and envious of the orphans who really called this beautiful land home.
The children skipped barefoot from house to house laughing and singing with their new brothers and sisters. Even sweet Aphiwe, born blind, needed no escort to show him the way. Though the children all loved to leave the gates to visit the zoo or the movie theater, their carefree joy was most obvious in the steps on their front porch or munching on a sweet at the kitchen table.
Although their home is far more exotic and complicated than my white-brick childhood home on Elmhurst road, the contentment, security and enchantment is all the same.
As Mary Allison grows I can see her delight as she moves throughout our home, remembering the rooms and cabinets and where the best crumbs fall, memorizing the smells and the people. In our comfortable walls and arms she squeals the loudest, smiles the brightest and sleeps the soundest.
Perhaps this is the picture of the house of the Lord where we hope to dwell all the days of our lives.
Isaac Watts' poetic version of Psalm 23 says it best:
My shepherd will supply my need, Jehovah is his name;
In pastures fresh he makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wand'ring spirit back
When I forsake his ways;
And leads me, for his mercy's sake,
In paths of truth and grace.
When I walk through the shades of death,
Thy presence is my stay;
A word of thy supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread,
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.
The sure provisions of my God
Attend my all my days:
O may thy house be mine abode,
And all my work be praise!
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home.
