You will all have to let me know if you are reading all these posts. I have been trying to get yo up to date but I am thinking you all still think we are interior. After this post I will slow down a bit so that you can catch up...OR, just let me know you are back with me.
It is a strange feeling when you are forever the center of attention every time you open the door, walk out, do mundane tasks or even just standing in the sun. The minute we got out of the airplane we were surrounded with loving embraces but also staring eyes. I remember knowing that I was set apart on some level when I was growing up here and I remember feeling like the platform I was set on was pretty comfortable. Maybe because we were the missionary kids, we were white, we were wealthy comparatively, we were educated..we were different enough that set us apart and set us up on a very awkward platform.
Returning back to the same scene and the same deference, I am no longer comfortable with the attention. I haven't earned any of their loyalty, love or deference. DO any of us really need that...it is a heady game and a dangerous one. If we do begin to believe we deserve the attention the platform gives us we are slipping dangerously into a place where we begin to feel the view from the platform is deserved. I watch Mijo and Nick closely to see if the seeds of superiority sown on that platform have found good soil. As children we received that deference not only here in Papua but when we headed home on furlough. The platform though is not reality, it isn't what is true and there isn't one thing about living in that atmosphere that is conducive to humility and service and God's grace. When we visited Mapnduma on the last day I was hit with overwhelming emotions..we were welcomed with a song group, gifts, weeping and wailing. I wanted to visit my Mom's grave, a moment alone but was completely surrounded the whole time with kind and curious attention. It was too much for me...to many familiar feelings of need I could not begin to address. The platform that we had been precariously put on the minute we landed here in Papua became suddenly way too painful. I am not what they want me to be...I may belong to them in spirit because I was born there, but I am not theirs. I am not able to fulfill their expectations and desires.
I am grateful for their love and loyalty to the idea of me..I am grateful that the platform is no longer comfortable but painful.
2 comments:
OK I gotta say this is the third time that I am writing this - Gracesen shut the computer off just as I finished the first one, then I didn't realize you had to have an account in order to leave a comment-you would think the least they could do was save your work while you create an account. Anyway being the third time to write this hopefully it hasn't lost the passion behind it. First of all don't slow down!!! Michelle and I were talking before Christmas about you guys and she had been reading your blog and I told her I couldn't find it so she gave me the site so I spent the next day reading all of your 2007 blogs and checked every day since to hear about your trip interior. It is briging back such wonderful memories for me; although my trip in was comparitively luxurious as your Dad and Elf still lived there so we had all the modern ammenaties. I am thankful that you got to go to Mpnduma and to see where you lived as a kid. I remember sitting in your house and wondering what it would have been like to grow up there. Pros and cons for sure!! I can appreciate the "platform" analogy and I can also appreciate that feeling would change as an adult. What a blessing that you could not only go back to visit your Mom's grave site and the place where you grew up but that you could do it with your kids and your Dad!! I am so excited for Scott that he got to walk those trails with the Natives!! WOW I can hardly wait to sit down and hear about all your adventures. How did the kids do with it all? Well I am now a faithful follower - know that I am walking with you and through you on your journey and am being blessed everytime I read. Sentani sounds like it has changed a lot but I can still see it in my minds eye.
Say hi to your Dad and Elf - are they with you now? Tell them we miss them and that all is well here. Give your family a huge hug as well. We are thinking of you all and praying for you.
Sorry to hear about your dog BTW - what a nightmare.
Marn
Heidi - I had been looking forward to your accounts of your trip to the interior. I read the first reports while in Toronto, and was delighted with what I read. I just got the rest of them read on my first day at home. I am disappointed for you that the solitude that you had hoped for at your mom's grave didn't happen - sigh! I hope you let us know how your kids managed - the responses they made to this uniquest of Christmas holidays. I'm continuing to pray for you in the areas you asked for prayer - may you see God's guidance and enabling as you move through the months ahead. - LEW
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