Stronger

A year ago today I was slinging my duffel bag into the trunk of our rental car to head to the airport, unexpectedly en route to South Sudan. I flew from Charlotte to New York, and then on to Amsterdam. Somewhere over the Atlantic, I woke up suddenly with the words, “love is stronger than death” burning and rolling over and over in my mind. I heard them almost audibly, and when I heard them I knew that Brian had gone to be with Jesus.

This is an awkward story to tell people because if sounds fake and overly sentimental, but that is what happened. I checked Facebook in the Amsterdam airport and found his wall filling up with words of love and grief and hope. A life well lived is mourned in a beautiful way. When someone leaves us, and one of our primary emotions is thankfulness- thankfulness that we had any time with them at all- that is beautiful. Brian lived his life beautifully, and the world is poorer without him.

 

I feel like I hardly have the right to miss him, so let me mark the anniversary of his passing here on this little blog that hardly anybody reads. I miss you, my one in a million friend. So thankful for your life. So thankful for a Love that conquers the grave.

Auld lang syne...

Favorite photo of 2012, taken in Yida, South Sudan.

Bye, bye, 2012. I would never have thought that I'd be sad to see you go, but I am. For better or for worse, I think it will be a good long while before I see the likes of you again.

Thirst...

I've been walking through a particularly painful season for many months now and the strain of it is bringing out all the worst in me. This has been hard, but I am learning not to put my hope in the idea that my circumstances will change, but rather to put my hope in the truth that I will change- for the better.

Thirst

Another morning and I wake with thirst

for the goodness I do not have. I walk

out to the pond and all the way God has

given us such  beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,

I was never a quick scholar but sulked

and hunched over my books past the

hour and the bell; grant me, in your

patience a little more time. Love for the

earth and love for you are having such a

long conversation in my heart. Who

knows what will finally happen or

where I will be sent, yet already I have

given a great many things away, expect-

ing to be told to pack nothing, except

the prayers which, with this thirst, I am

slowly learning.

-Mary Oliver-

Happy Valentine's Day!

....from South Sudan.

(Kissa, this is especially for you and Phil and the godchildren, of course. When are you going to get Facebook already? Just kidding.)

Some Yida scenes...

The maternity ward and the nutrition center.

Our swing in our tree in our compound.

Our grass office.

It's a long story...

...but here is my new home in the Yida transit camp in South Sudan. Further bulletins as events warrant.

B.

We've both spent the last week getting ready to leave. I couldn't stop thinking about that as I packed and repacked.

I am getting on a plane again tomorrow morning, and I wonder if you will have arrived at your destination by the time I arrive at mine. I've been thinking about when I was getting ready to leave for Mozambique and you told me to just go for it- to go with my whole heart. I don't think that you wanted me to leave, but you cheered me on when I did. I wish I could be as selfless as you, but I can`t. I don't want you to go.

I've been thinking about how strange it is that you are the one who is supposedly dying, and I am the one who is supposedly living. I find this odd, when it is me who is filling bags with more and more weight. Bags full of pills to ward off malaria and boost my nutrition. Full of clothes and lotions to keep away the heat of the sun. A million and one things designed to help me limp along somewhat successfully in this wretched planet. You on the other hand have been slowly letting go- letting go of the need for morphine and radiation and chemo and surgery. Away from the hold of pain and fear and disappointment. It seems like you are actually the one who is going to go on living, while we stay here and feel the sting of death and decay. I think that at some point I will be happy for you because of this, but tonight I am just sad.

I love you a lot, friend. I really do. You are the best man that I know. I will always be so thankful that I knew you, and so honored that you wanted to know me.

Journey well. I know that you will.