MozamWeek

Usually at this time of my "leavings" I am becoming more and more irritated by my current country and culture. I remember times of temperamental impatience as someone took too long to find a price for my can of tomatoes... or a car managed to perform a particularly common irrational moving violation in my immediate vicinity... or a beggar asked just one more time...   I've not felt that this time. This last time. I am more filled with understanding and nostalgia. I'm much more gracious than usual. This can only be the grace of God, I think, as I pack another box and say another goodbye. Tears are always close. I well up at the slightest inclination... crossing the Zambezi at sunset... waiting for cows to get out of the road... sweating in the heat as the kids come out of the school... remembering him or her or those other ones. I sigh a lot. I've heard it is good for you. I hate crying, but my grandma warned me it gets worse with age. I'm proving her r

I know it is hard to accept that you might be the answer to a big problem. I know it is hard when I am the answer to a need bigger than I can meet alone. Before you reject a Syrian neighbor, I suggest you meet a person who is from another home than yours. I suggest you consider what it means to be hopeful that you can start somewhere safe. What is it like to leave everything crushed behind you. People you knew and cared about are just gone... Then you show up in the "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave" and find the doors locked and the neighbors trembling because you are there and you are different. You long for safety and you are stared at from behind closed doors. You look different. It is hard to communicate. You don't know anyone. They don't want to know you. I am grieving here in Mozambique, far away from my homeland. I see post after post shared by people I love declaring they have no place for Syrian resettlement. They "hate Obama" and they