Longings...

How is it possible to long for a place you have never set foot on?? How is it possible to yearn for somewhere you have never been? I get sooo emotional EVERY time I hear people's stories, and every time I see the pictures of the kids...and I truly can NOT explain it. Peter and I were extremely blessed tonight because we were able to have a computer conversation with his brother Mark who is currently living in Sierra Leone till next August. And I couldn't type fast enough, but none of my questions and words seemed to do the experience justice. I wanted to be in the same room as him, I wanted to taste the food he had been eating, and to meet the children he had met, and I longed for a nickname...I longed to be there with him. The tears just started rolling down my face and there was no explanation for them, and I couldn't stop them. My heart ached, I mean it truly ached...and granted peter and I both miss Mark terribly, but we both yearn to be in this place with him, experiencing all these things first hand with HIM.

I just don't get it, and I am left frustrated....how can you long for a place you have never been to? This longing has been there for soo long, and I quite frankly can't remember a time when it wasn't there. I have been to so many different places, and I have experienced so many different cultures, but this longing remains unfulfilled. Why is that?

How much longer must I wait? The timing has never seemed right...and I have been sent to so many different places, yet the one place I long for is always just a grasp away. And now the timing feels right for me to experience this place, but there are other obstacles in the way that weren't there before....like money for one.

But then at the end of the day...my heart is at rest and I know that in God's timing I will finally experience this place...this place they call Africa ...my heart will be touched by the people, and I will be forever changed...but God's timing is perfect and I must be still and know that He is God and I must wait patiently....

so that's where I am now..I am patiently waiting.......