Home, Always and Forever

I sat at the computer this morning to sort my emails (yuck) and eat a stolen spoonful of chocolate chip-less chocolate chip cookie dough (chocolate chips are gold in my house, so we ration, even now!).  Harper came as I was reading this blog post. I love her writing.  I love how she expresses herself.  And best of all, I love how real she is and how that speaks to the hearts of other moms slogging it out, day-in, day-out like me.

I was reading and could not take my eyes off the screen.  Harper wandered onto my lap with an armful of dollies and asked if she could have some of my Rooibos tea.  Without a second thought, I pulled my two-and-a-half year old onto my lap and let her share my morning tea and rusk with me.  I begrudged her the rusk but only because I'm selfish sometimes.  And then, it struck me.

I was reading a blog post about a South African woman who is homesick for the country I am still living in, still trying to sort out.  The country I cherish.  The country I love deep down in my marrow, because in so many ways, I feel it is the country where I was born.  I technically became a mother in the US, but my "mama"-ness was birthed here. My voice, my passions, my callings and my Heavenly Father's voice were all reborn in my heart here in a way I can't even describe.

I'm a middle child.  I was told once that middle children often feel "rootless, groundless, homeless" in some ways and I totally get that.  But here, in a place that so very much resembles the California of my childhood, the California of summer wild fires, hot, dusty red clay and endless hills to climb.  The California that has fresh avocado and strawberries, fresh meats and good seafood.  The California that has diversity and multiculturalism in its very blood.  The California that has immigration, too many languages to learn and hundred nuances and differences that make it unique.  THAT is what I find here.  I find a country that has 11 national languages and rather than shrinking from that challenge, embraces it.  I find a country that is trying to sort itself out through the awkward early 20-something phase where following anyone else's footprints but your own to be just useless.  I find a country brimming with culture and history and passion and art and such amazing food I still wonder how I ever fit into the plane seat each time we fly.

So I read this post about the Karoo and the jacarandas and the hadida and all I can think is, "Will my kids miss this place like that?"  Often times, I hear things about how MKs (missionary kids) feel 'transient' or 'out of place' because they never really were from the culture they grew up in, but they didn't grow up in the culture of their passport.  The brutal truth for Todd and me, and it is fairly brutal (especially to our families and loved ones) is that we call South Africa home.  We will miss our small little slice of the End of the Earth as I call our section of Jozi.  We will miss our bed and our piles of dirty laundry.  We will miss our garden and Woolworths coffee dates.

We are adults though.  We can sort out the differences- driving on the opposite side of the road, drinking coffee rather than tea, wearing mittens and scarves instead of sandals and shorts at Christmas.  But the kids are small.  They get out of sorts and seem to long for their home almost as soon as we land at the airport.  They dislike having their accents pointed out and sometimes, worse, made fun of.  They miss food that doesn't hurt their stomachs and they miss the playgrounds at every single restaurant.  Please don't get me wrong, we all love seeing friends and family, reconnecting with people and spending time catching up.  One day, though, are they going to look up and realize that they have no "home?"  Are they going to feel just as out of place wanting melktert or koeksister as I feel missing peppermint ice cream and semi sweet chocolate?

I've recently come to realize that if I'm not intentional about being unapologetically me, then my kids will get a haphazard version of mixed messages in life that I just don't want for them.  I desperately don't want them to carry MY baggage with them through life.  I want them to carry their own.  The baggage they will someday sort out hopefully.  And I'm sure I'm giving them dysfunction, and I'm okay with that because at least when I lay my head down at night, I can know that the dysfunction they are getting isn't by default, it's not inherited but rather just the dysfunction that comes from having an imperfect mama who messes things up, including them, sometimes.

I don't want those issues to come from a place of feeling lost though.  I want them to know, deep in their souls KNOW where they come from, who they are, and the love of the Savior that led our family to here and then back again.  I want them to embrace their heritage as South Africans by birth, but not citizenship, even if all they remember are snippets and stories I will tell them.  I want them to embrace their love of gumboots and know where that name came from, even when everyone around them calls them rain boots.  I want them to fondly long for Christmas Eve when they get a new bathing cozy (swim suit) instead of flannel pajamas.  I want them to know that the emblem on their passport, the number of stamps within, or the address of their mail does not define them.  They don't have to defend their love of veld fires and potjiekos and vors with chutney or the accent of their childhood, the voice of their dreams.  They don't have to defend any part of the things they love and hold dear because they will have realized who they are:   my baby, my precious child, always and forever.  No matter what.