As I shift shores, slide from one continent to the next, exchange depths of poverty for heights of abundance, and relearn landscapes of gestures, words, and civilities . . . . I gain new perspective on identity.
I am talking, of course, about transition from Bundibugyo, Uganda to all things U.S.A. A contrast beyond words, past thought or understanding, illustrating once again “how great is our God.” To think that God holds both of these worlds not only in His hands but in His heart, always in His mind along with the boggling other parts of the world, inspires total awe. For me, I can barely hold in my intellectual mind (and not at all in my emotional mind) that both worlds exist in parallel time. While I sit in a bookstore and browse through a plethora of books on every possible topic, time, place, culture, sipping a sweet, hot drink it is unimaginable and yet true that at this very moment my Ugandan neighbors are once again crying themselves to sleep in hunger, or sadness of abandonment or the emptiness of dreams not even known to be dreamt.
Forgive my drama, but children really are dying. . . . . .
As for me, I am immersed in my own identity shift. While I try to remember best what needs to be told so that the Babwisi will be known well . . . . I also seek to remember who I am in this theme park we call America. Haircuts, dental appointments, shopping trips, new makeup all help me become the person I am here. But along with each of these, a healthy helping of guilt . . . You can’t forget what your money buys in a place so far away yet close to your heart. Money for a haircut, enough to save lives. . . . . I revel in the spa day paid for by a good friend’s husband, letting the skilled touch of my masseur remind me of the sheer physicality of love. Wondering what amazement any Mabwise would express at the idea of paying for this experience . . . of HAVING this experience; I contemplate the presence of touch in their own lives. I think about gestures I have trouble leaving behind in Uganda . . . I still cup, two-handed, many of the hands that I shake here, trying to convey my thankfulness through the physical expressions that I know Africans so well for.

So here I am, skin softer from many hot showers, each one pouring over me again in profound reminder of how very, very much I have been given. It’s so easy to smell nice here, and I remember how Jesus allowed a bottle of perfume to be emptied over his feet, allowing God to be honored and glorified through abundance. I sleep in the most comfortable of beds and remember old widow friends who sleep on thin banana leaf mats placed on dirt floors, remember the beauty of their toothless smiles, remember the bend of their backs still used daily for carrying sand or wood or rice . . . . .

True beauty is not hard to find, but you may have to go to Africa.
Meanwhile, I hope that I can hold loosely these exquisite pleasures of a simple American life, and that through my eyes you can catch a glimpse of what all the clothes, lipstick and new hairstyles don’t help to expose . . . A glimpse of my heart, raw in some hint of the way Jesus’ was, with a wanting to “get” your lives even as I “get” theirs and to hear what is unspoken in every conversation both here and there, how much each heart longs to know His.
At some level, the identity shifts I make here in America are very like the identity shifts I have made there; the outside changes, varies, camouflages to become like what surrounds me while inside I remain the same, strong only in my weakness, confident only in the God who designed me for everything He asks me to do, beautiful in the ways I am able to reflect Him. The not-much that I am is enough only because He was and is and will always be, enough.