Full Circle: Starting Point

This is a picture of us from 10 years ago.  It makes me smile.  There we are, 20 years old, our first adventure in Kenya together.  It’s set in a village called Maji Moto, a little outpost of civilization, rising out of the dust of Massailand around a geothermal vent (maji moto = hot water).  You can see a lot about these two characters by this picture.  They are young and browned by the African sun.  They like to stand close together, despite the heat and the dust.  They wear the beadwork handicrafts given to them by their friends, and rest in the shade of an mbati (tin) roof in the equatorial sun.  He wears around his neck a stethoscope, just taking a lunch break from a busy clinic.  It’s a symbol, of his dreams to be a healer, of the revelation in the human body; he is just beginning to hear the voice of God through it.  And it rests atop a thrift-store polyester button-up, uniform of the bohemian to match the afro that blends into the shade of the building.  I like this guy.  And there she is; the golden one that he’s pursued across the world.  The Peachtree Road Race t-shirt reminds her of the races she’s run and calls her to the ones before her.  Sunglasses and twin braids.  And you can see it in their eyes and in their posture: the passion and the idealism.  This is where it truly began for us; the opening act of this chapter of the story of Yahweh, in which our parts are set in Africa.