Loving Africa

  All's well that ends well... (my flight out of Nashville) My first journal entry is dated 19 January 2021 and begins, "I hardly want to remember yesterday, but for posterity..." If this post sounds insane and you start getting dizzy and confused... you will understand how it really was. After spending the weekend being physically ill from nerves, I woke up on Monday morning, January 18th, completely ready to leave (having received the blessing of the priest at the parish in Nashville after Mass the day before), with the notable exception of covid test results.   I called Air France before leaving the house to ask what would happen if I didn't have my test results in time for my flight and was told I would be able to rebook, at no charge, up to four days ahead. Naturally, I was not interested in that. I also called CVS (where I had gotten the test done) and was told that it was reasonable to expect results that day. In my journal, I wrote, "Called Delta [partner

The Atlantic Ocean in Libreville. My story definitely does not start there.  Or rather, where it doesn't start. My story doesn't start the day I flew out of Nashville. Not by a long shot.  Growing up, the idea of mission work was not, if you will, foreign to me. My paternal grandparents were missionaries in Argentina (my grandmother was a nurse), my mom frequently told us of the month she spent in Nigeria, my dad and eldest brother went on a mission trip to Guatemala when I was five, and for years my family sponsored underprivileged children in South America and India.  Despite all this, I never had the "active desire" to do mission work until I was about thirteen or fourteen years old. There was a day when the thought simply came to me (one could add, I suppose, "from nowhere", except that it was probably my guardian angel suggesting it), "I want to be a missionary." While the idea waned a little as I continued to consider what I wanted to do with