Getting lost.

As I sit on a reed mat, drinking my Ricoffy and watching the sun go down just past the grass fence, I can hear in the distance the rhythms of traditional drums mourning the loss of a village chief. In what I wish was far in the distance, I can hear a young goat "mbuzi" hollering for her mother in a way that could easily be a YouTube hit. My sister, Annie, is around the corner, beating a bag full of maize with a stick in an attempt to sheer the recent abundant harvest. My friend Priscilla is inside bathing her two younger brothers while my mother is busy in the cook hut, smoke billowing out the glassless windows. I sit here reading a book with lines like: "The most likely to befriend strangers are those who have been strangers themselves. The best way to grow empathy for those who are lost is to know what it means to be lost yourself." I feel so grateful for the many moments I have felt lost on this continent, whether in culture, in language, on dark Zambian roads, in emotional immaturity, in identity, in heartbreak, in search of Jesus. It is when we are lost that we are found.