Bridges

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Bridges are precarious for creatures. In the crazy scary true story of “The Ghost and The Darkness”, man-eating lions haunt the colonial workers in British East Africa who were building a railroad bridge through Tsavo, Kenya. Bridge building is dangerous, but the goal is to bring worlds together. 

When we went to Missionary Training International in Colorado both before and after our years in Kenya, they taught us to use the transition bridge as an analogy for the feelings of being settled, unsettling, chaos in the middle, then resettling, and settled again on the other side of the transition.   It gave vocabulary to us and our kids so man-cub could say “I feel like I’m in total chaos!” when in fact our whole family was feeling that way a few weeks ago.  And I could use that time to remind [myself and] him of where our True Peace is: not in a place but in a Person- Jesus Christ.

Flash back to a bridge story from Kenya:

On one of my last excursions in the villages around Tenwek, I was taking about 15 house-helpers out to the home of Pastor Francis who has also been cooking for missionaries for about 30 years.  His friends wanted to honor him by visiting his home and bringing blessings.  In Kenya, people truly believe that “to have a visitor is to have a blessing”.  So we journeyed out about 15 kilometers to his home for a visit with hot chai in tin mugs, fresh mandazi- a local homemade doughnut, speeches honoring the host and hostess, speeches welcoming the visitors, me choking back the “golly this is the last time” tears, and then the gift giving and singing. Singing to the Lord for joy, singing to honor Pastor Francis and his wife.  Singing by the Kipsigis men and women is done in their natural voice- no frills but pure belting it out from their truest voice.  No reserve or self- consciousness, but lots and lots of singing.  It’s not like the Zulu singers of South Africa that you may have heard, but the acapella harmonies will flash you forward still to the gathering of all the saints around the throne of God.  It is a magical experience to be there in a humble home with newspaper walls, dirt floors, a single solar light bulb and the evening closing in outside but the warmth of the room radiating a blessing to the whole community.  And they wanted to give Pastor a new blue suit, shirt, tie, socks, shoes, blanket, and a dress for his wife.  Presentations are always a big deal in Kenya.  Ceremony and honoring and gift giving are really important to people. They wanted to do this before I left and they didn’t have a car to reach that far away village after work where he and his family have lived for generations.

I am so so very blessed to have been there.  I felt so accepted there among my friends, even as the only white person for miles and miles. Even as it got dark on the drive home and I’m not supposed to have been out after dark driving, I felt so full of life and blessed beyond reason.  Then they said it.  “Wait. The bridge is out.”  We were at a hairpin turn on the bottom of a hill where a natural spring runs under the road.  The right hand side of the road had fallen down under the pressure of too many dump trucks that are building further up the road. Okaaaay…So driving off a bridge is a pretty legitimate fear, right?  I decided to do a 37 point turn around and let my friends walk home from there.   Stella road with me the extra distance to keep me company (In Kenya people do not like for you to be alone). They all texted me to make sure that I arrived home safely.   The songs were still ringing in my ears. Oh, how I love and miss those times and those people.

Only a few days after that, Daktari, the Wife, Man-Cub, and Little Miss are all on a big red bus riding around London.  We drive over the famous Tower Bridge, and London Bridge (which is not falling down), and zoom back to Heathrow to fly all the way across the Atlantic.  Effie told me that the airplanes are too fast for the heart to catch up and we find ourselves in the West with bits of Africa still all over us.

We are now living in Chattanooga- a Cherokee word meaning “rock coming to a point- what we call now "Lookout Mountain".  We have a lot of bridges here in the “Scenic City/ Gig City/ River City”.  One of the bridges is actually part of the historic Trail of Tears where Chief John Ross and the Cherokee Indians were forced out of Tennessee to Oklahoma by the president on the US 20 Dollar bill- another Tennessean.  So many bridges and transitions in my life, but nothing like the Cherokee went through here.  Little Miss calls out at all the bridges “Look!  Are we in London!?”

Yes, darlin, I too am disoriented with my body on one continent and my heart divided between two.  Two years ago 5-year old Man-cub explained to his sister “We don’t have a home now, we just live free in the wild”.  And again it feels like we are in the wilderness walking by faith one day at a time.  In being cross-cultural workers, we have chosen to take this shaky, chaotic, risky life of un and re-settling.  But we get to bring worlds together.

And there are not many people on earth that might be more blessed or more thankful than we are.