Revisiting secret places in the heart.

Emily is in Tchad and she finally posted something.

I'll be honest when I was reading it my heart started racing and I was instantly transported there.

I know what it's like to return to a place like that. Six months after I left the Hogar de Ninos in Honduras I found myself on a plane going back to visit for three weeks. There really is nothing better than going 'home' to a place you had thought you would never see again. I remember the feelings of wanting to jump off of the plane and run through the airport to find my friends. Then once I was on the REACH bus headed to el Hogar, I remember talking the WHOLE 2 hours with one of the girls from the home, the excitement was oozing out of me, and once the bus pulled into the gate of the hogar I ran out and up the hill into the arms of all the beautiful children. The feeling was amazing. Something akin to what I think heaven will be like. It was magnificent to touch and talk to all the kids again, to see their faces, when 6 months previous I was certain that I would never see them again. I will hold tight to that feeling, that sensation, of love forever.

Sometimes when I can't sleep or I need to distract myself from my thoughts I'll imagine what it would be like to go back to Tchad and visit my family.

I imagine myself driving on the main road that goes straight to my hut, the last time I was on that road I was waving goodbye to my African family with tears in my eyes, in the future I imagine myself begging the bus driver to stop and drop my stuff off on the side of that brown, dusty dirt road. Then I imagine running to the right, straight towards my hut, down the road past the pink house all the way to my families compound.

the main road is on the left, the path by the 'fence' is what goes to my family's compound. The clump of green trees on the bottom right is the compound.

This is a video of my court yard and some of my family.

I imagine Mowgli, my dog, running out to me and recognizing me and then all the kids and the neighbor kids running out and yelling, "Sonya, la pia, la pia"and "Nasara! Nasara". Just like they used to do everyday when I came home. Then I will run to them all and I will start talking a thousand words at a time to them. I imagine all the words getting mixed up on my tongue and coming out in French, Spanish and English, just because my heart will be pounding in my chest and my brain will be in overdrive. Then we will all go into the compound where Mathieu and Ama will be. I will be just as excited to hug them and I imagine my eyes will react the same way they did when I left, tears will fall. Then greetings will be passed around like fried grasshoppers and excitement will be the soup de jour. We will talk the evening away and when the sun sets Ama will bring out the mats and Mathieu will bring out the cassette tape player and we will listen to Topouri music and dance under the Tchadian night sky.

I don't know if this will ever happen. And I'm not sure if I would ever go back. The reality sometimes doesn't match up with the imagination.

I don't know where I will work in the future. I don't know if I'll be in an African country, a North American state, or some other random place.

I do know that Emily is lucky to be able to visit people she loves, I wish at times I could be with her and I do know that she needs prayer because Bere, Tchad is a battlefield for souls and she is working for Christ.