not an ‘if’ question

Somehow, impossibly, I am in Nairobi and in 7 hours will begin the 3-plane, 22-hour journey home. By 7 AM this morning we took our last breakfast with the family, said goodbyes at the airport, and gone through our first of many, many security clearances.  By 11 AM we had flown to Eldoret, then to Nairobi, and arrived at Kibera Girls Soccer Academy in Kibera slum.  By 3:30 PM we had toured Kibera, gone shopping, and arrived back at the airport for our 11:30 PM flight. Now we wait in the Nairobi airport to officially leave Kenyan soil, though leaving the Umoja community this morning felt like the true goodbye to me.

It has been a wonderful summer of parachuting, community, humility, meaning, and joy. In the last seven weeks I have visited 16 primary schools, 7 churches, 5 secondary schools, and countless homes. I have lived with 3 families and walked hundreds of kilometers. I have laughed, I have cried. I have danced, I have sung, I have listened.

I come home changed, I come home stronger. I come home with questions, I come home with drive. I come home covered in mud, I come home with a ferocious farmer’s tan. I come home saddened to leave this beautiful place, but I come home ready.

I am not ready to be home in the respect that I am itching to go or am counting down the minutes, but that I feel resolved. I gave my heart, my full heart, this summer.  I put my soul into every word of encouragement, every rise of the parachute, every long walk.  I loved and I lived and I learned.

The last couple of days, I’ve been struggling to determine my readiness, my willingness to go home; it’s never easy for me to leave this place. But today I woke up, helped make breakfast, did my final load of laundry with collected rainwater, put on my sunscreen, and felt ready.  Ready not just to return home, to be with family, to see my cats, but also ready to leave knowing that I will return.  And I am sure.  Sure that, even if I don’t make it back to Kenya before I finish school, that in three years time I will again be here.  Sure that I will be ready to live in Kenya long-term some day.

When I told my mentor that I would be returning to Kenya this summer, he told me that me and Kenya is never an ‘if’ question but a ‘when’ question.  I’ve been using those words as I say my goodbyes this week, and I find that saying them continues my resolve, my readiness.  I am able to say my goodbyes, to leave my family and friends, to leave this life I love because it isn’t an ‘if’ question.

I am certain. I am resolved. I am ready.