As we prepare to leave tomorrow for Botswana, I am reminded of something I wrote many years ago. I fell in love with Africa and her people when I was 16, and anticipated the day I'd move here for good. I wrote this entry 8-9 years ago while I was home in New York preparing to move to South Africa. It's been taped in the cover of my Bible ever since...

Africa...

I close my eyes and I see children. Beautiful ebony faces; bare, rough-skinned feet; mismatched, ragged clothes; eyes that dance. Eyes that dance to the song of childhood freedom and innocence. Eyes that dance to the song...their song! I hear them. They sing with passion. No shame, no embarrassment, no inhibitions. Their faces radiant. Their voices angelic. Passionate strength. Innate harmony. Songs from their souls. Their souls! Lost. Bound in chains of tribal religions and beliefs. Blinded by the darkness of their minds. Locked in the prison of fear. Freedom! They need to be told. They need to know that there is a key to unlock the gate on the city of fear and death they live within. They need to hear that there is One with the power to set them free. "How, then, can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?"(*) "Here am I! Send me!" (**) "He said, 'Go!'" (***)

And so I go...

* Romans 10:14-15
** Isaiah 6:8
*** Mark 16:15