Footnote to the Africa trip... sorry this is so long.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’ve been awake since 2… lying in bed, thinking about life, thinking about things. I wasn’t planning to blog about this, but somewhere around 2:30 I realize that the people who followed our trip to Kenya need to know about the latest adventure in my life and how, strangely, it’s all wrapped up in my time spent in Kenya.

On Friday, July 23rd, we returned from Kenya, tired and missing one piece of luggage – the duffel filled with dirty laundry. I say to Lauren, “well if we’re going to lose a bag, at least it’s clothes and not our new treasures from Kenya.” Lauren replies, “mom, my favorite clothes are in that bag.” We spend Saturday and Sunday nestled away in our remote home at the farm, napping, watching tv, trying to readjust to life in a first world country. The missing bag turns up; we heave a sigh of relief. On Monday, I return to work trying to figure out how to live with my body in one place and my heart and mind in another. I email my friends in Kenya, checking on them, letting them know we returned home safely. That’s a strange week. I come back to piles of work – nothing urgent but lots to do. I try to remember what it is that I do and work on focusing and getting things done. It’s hard, and by the end of the week, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished enough. On Sunday we go to church and Bo preaches about idols in our lives. I sit in my seat and honestly try to identify my idols. Funny, I think to myself, I don’t think I have any idols. To which Bo says, “if you’re sitting there thinking you don’t have an idol, you’re wrong.” Hmmm… I think. What could it be? I ask myself the questions he is posing. If you had unlimited resources, what would you spend it on? How do you spend your free time? And it hits me. My idol is my home. I am a nester. I love to watch HGTV, make plans for remodeling and redecorating. I dream about stainless steel appliances and granite countertops – not to impress anyone, but because I love beautiful things, especially beautiful homes, especially my home. On Tuesday, my home burns to the ground in 30 minutes.

Day 1: August 3
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon, and the new president of our university has just left the Center where I work. We’re excited about having met her and excited about the possibilities of the future under her leadership. I walk into my office and my cell phone is ringing. It’s Lauren. “Mom,” she says, “I think the hot water heater just exploded.” I ask her why she thinks that and she says that the whole house shook… she thought someone had driven into the house. Going to the kitchen window, she hears a hissing from the garage, so she heads to her bedroom to grab a handful of precious things, calls me, and leaves the house. “Go into the garage,” I tell her, thinking that there is a water leak, “see if there’s any water or smoke.” I’m trying to tell her where the fire extinguisher is. The tiny little fire extinguisher we bought 15 years ago in case of a grease fire. “There are flames coming out of the storage room,” Lauren says. The house is on fire. “Get out,” I say, “and call 911. I’m on my way.” I scramble to get my car keys, take a minute to shut my computer down and calmly tell my co-workers that the house is on fire. Of course, I’m thinking that the fire department will put it out quickly. “What’s the worst that could happen,” I ask. We could lose the storage room in the garage, maybe the laundry room on the other side of the wall. A little smoke damage to the kitchen. In the parking lot, I remember the gas tank – the huge tank of propane that fuels our many gas appliances. It’s at the far edge of the yard; I call Lauren to tell her to stay far away from the gas tank. She assures me that she is away from it. I hear her scream, “It’s gone. It’s all gone.” And she loses cell phone reception. I drive 80 miles an hour home. I’ve wondered what I would do in the face of disaster or tragedy… what would my reaction be? Would I shut down? Panic? Save the day? Get angry? Now I know. I would cry out to Jesus. That’s what I did for the 30 mile drive home. I prayed - for strength, for protection, for Him to be in control, for Him to fix what I couldn’t, for Him to wrap His arms around Lauren, for peace. Funny, I realize later, I didn’t pray for Him to save my house. I keep calling Lauren. It goes straight to voice mail. As I round the bend and see the house for the first time, I am filled with shock and with horror but also with an incredible peace. The house has been consumed by flames. There are still a few flames in places. But there is no house. Just brick walls and gaping holes where the windows used to be. Through those holes, I can see flames and smoke, but strangely, nothing else – no furniture, no “stuff,” and that’s when I realize that it’s all gone. In 30 minutes, it’s all gone. I find Lauren at the bottom of the hill. She bolts from the car and throws herself in my arms. “It’s gone,” she wails. “Jesus is in control,” I tell her. “You’re okay, we’re all okay, we will be okay.” Deep in my heart, I know this to be true. I don’t understand it, but I know it to be true. There are a handful of firefighters on the hill, battling a 3000 square foot inferno. We live in a remote area, so there are no fire hydrants. Just trucks filled with water, and fire hoses snaking up our steep hill. It looks like they’re watering the lawn, I think to myself. It’s 100 degrees outside in this extended Southern summer. In my house, it’s 5000 degrees. Within 10 minutes David arrives home and then neighbors and family start to come. David stays up on the hill with the firefighters – a first row seat to watching his dreams and security burn to the ground. I stay at the bottom of the hill, talking with neighbors, friends, and family. My phone beeps. “Is everything okay?” a co-worker texts. “The house has burned to the ground,” I reply.

An angel arrives with bottled water and Gatorade. Another comes with toothbrushes and underwear. I am overwhelmed with all of the plans that need to be made, all of the things appearing on my “to do” list. A friend offers their family camphouse, a beautiful retreat, to us. “Stay as long as you need to,” she says. David and I stay at the burning house until 9 o’clock that night, until the responding fire departments have left, all but one lonely truck and the man who will come back and check for flare ups throughout the night. It’s dry here, and the fire doesn’t need to spread to the grass and then to the thousands of acres of pine forests surrounding our house. We drive back to Columbus in separate cars. Lauren is going to spend the night with a friend. David and I are headed to the camphouse. I call my mom and say, “Mom, I finally have news.”

We can’t sleep. We prowl around the house, try to eat something, but our appetites are gone along with everything else. David says to me, “all I have are the clothes on my back.” I am wishing that I hadn’t worn white pants to work that day. They’re filthy, my one pair of pants. We begin the game. Naming all of the lost things. It’s unbearable, but we can’t stop. “My great-great grandmother’s quilt,” I say. “My granddaddy’s shotgun,” says David. “My grandmother’s silver,” I counter. “The mug Lauren gave me with her picture on it,” says David. It’s a game no one can win, but we keep playing. All through the night, I wake up thinking of things lost in the fire. Around 3, I get up and lay on the couch, praying I’ll wake up and find it all a dream. At 5:30 I wake up, feel the leather beneath me, see the deer heads mounted on the wall, and know it’s not.

Day 2: August 4
In the shower, I fall apart for no apparent reason – I mean other than the obvious – but I hadn’t even been thinking sad thoughts. When the water started, though, so did the tears, and I couldn’t stop until the water turned off again. I get dressed in my day before clothes, and head to the office to make phone calls. It’s quick since I don’t have all of the usual things to go through. “A girl can live without anything but mascara,” my friend said the night before as she delivered mascara and a hairdryer. For the next two days, I keep repeating that to myself. During the night, I’d made several “to do” lists in my head. A list of phone calls, a list of things that had to be replaced immediately. I call the insurance company and then the utility companies to have everything disconnected. “Have a nice day” they tell me as we hang up. Funny, I think, that they still follow their script, even when they know what’s happened to us. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on the phone with the satellite company, explain that the house burned to the ground, refusing to transfer my service (to where? I ask), declining their offer to hold my account open for up to six months, and listening to directions about returning my receiver and remote. “Do you want me to ship you a shovel full of ash?” I ask. Then on to replacing things. I have two priorities. Order a laptop for Lauren. She starts college in a week and a half. And second, to re-order my Africa necklace. In May, I ordered beautiful handmade silver necklaces from a sweet and very talented soul in Colorado. One for me and one for Lauren. They are in the shape of the African continent with hand stamping on the front. Lauren’s had a cross stamped where Kenya is. Mine had the word “Hope” stamped across it again and again. A continent covered in Hope. Lauren was wearing hers the day of the fire. I was not. “Why not,” David asked. “You wear it every day.” “I dressed up to meet the president,” I said, “so I wore a fancier necklace.” I email Tracy, the talented jewelry artist and ask for an immediate replacement. Those were my priorities. A computer and a necklace. Then it’s on to shopping. Three changes of clothes for each of us. A few basics from Wal-Mart. The phone rings non-stop. “Next time your house is burning down,” I say to Lauren, “grab the makeup.” I get an apartment on campus. I order furniture. I try not to play the “what we lost” game.

Day 3: August 5
More phone calls, more errands. Having the utilities turned on at the new place. The day is a blur. David goes to the farm to dig through the rubble. He calls that afternoon, “Hurry home. I have a surprise for you.” He’s found my dad’s coin collection, discolored but still intact. He’s also found an 8 x 10 photo of his dad in his military uniform. Completely burned around the edges like we had done it on purpose. Before I leave the office that afternoon, I am presented with a small fortune in gift cards and a beautifully framed piece of art from Kenya for my new home. I cry for the second time.

Day 4: August 6
Lauren and I head to Jackson, armed with gift cards and a huge shopping list. We are going to replace all of her dorm things, treasures we’d been gradually collecting over the past year, all in a day. I also have to get bedding, towels, shower curtains, and kitchen basics. It will be a marathon of shopping. We can’t sleep, so we leave at 6 a.m. and arrive before most of the stores have opened. We fill the car until it won’t hold any more and crash at the hotel. In the morning, we head home, exhausted.

Day 5: August 7
This is moving day. The furniture arrives, and I make up the bed. We unload the packed car and begin opening boxes and unpacking bags. It looks like we have been to a wedding shower. Our few belongings are moved from the camphouse in grocery bags. David hangs the shower curtains. We decide to spend the night in our new house. Lauren invites a friend over to sleep on the floor with her. “Tell her to bring a sleeping bag,” I say.

Day 6: August 8
I’ve been asked to speak at church today about our trip to Kenya. I talk some about of the projects we work with there and then I share the two main lessons I’ve learned from my time in Kenya – the importance of relationships/community and what is enough. That second one has been a struggle for me since my first trip and something I continue to be challenged by with every trip. How can people with so little, I wonder, be so much happier and more at peace than those with so much? Through the years I begin to question, what if it’s not security and comfort that bring us joy? What if it’s uncertainty and struggle that really bring us true happiness? I know that my time in Kenya and my struggle with questions like these have prepared me for this week. For years, I had been redefining what was important, and I knew that “stuff” wasn’t high on the list. While this is never something I would have chosen for my family, I say, there is something strangely liberating about not having anything, about being freed from your idol.

Day 7: August 9
The girls from work come over to help me settle in. I am incapable of making any more decisions or reading directions. They organize my kitchen, decide where everything should go. They put together a metal shelf for my bathroom, set up the tv, drink coffee, and show me love in countless ways. One of the maintenance men comes to hang my Africa picture in the living room. I frame the picture of David’s dad that was pulled from the rubble and put it on the bookcase. Right next to it I put my African angel, a metal sculpture of a woman that I brought back from Kenya this summer. David found her as well. She’s rusted and bent but still beautiful. I can’t believe she survived. It starts to feel like home. When they leave I lay down and try to nap.

Days 8-11: August 10-13
Back to work. I spend my days in the office, now just a two minute walk from home. In the evenings, I cook dinner and we eat together around our little table – something we haven’t done regularly in years. We think about all of the insurance forms to be filled out, but we don’t do any of it. We just spend time together. We are overwhelmed with the generosity of others – it’s hard for us to accept. “We don’t need help,” we keep saying. “But you need to let us help,” they respond. We receive a huge box of clothing from our niece’s work family in North Carolina. People we don’t even know are helping us, praying for us, and showing us God’s love.

Day 12: August 14
Today is our “sifting through the ashes” party at the house. We invite friends and family to bring rakes and hoes and dig through the rubble to see if there are any treasures to be found. It’s still 100 degrees here, so the party starts at 7 a.m. At 6:15, Lauren and I stop at a fast food restaurant to pick up a friend for the party. He’s not there yet, so we sit in the parking lot. A disheveled man wanders around looking at us. “Creepy,” says Lauren. “Lock your door,” I tell her. We watch in shock and horror as he begins digging through the garbage cans and realize he’s looking for food. “We can give him a granola bar and a banana,” I say. “Just roll your window down and give it to him.” “No,” Lauren says, “I’m getting out and giving it to him.” And she does. My sixteen year old daughter who saved her three most precious belongings (her baby blanket, Bible, and Africa journal) from her burning house, steps out of the car to graciously greet and feed a homeless man. I am humbled and proud. A minute later the friend arrives and we drive around the building. The man is no where to be found. “Weird,” Lauren says. “Maybe it was Jesus,” I reply.

It’s my first time to be at the house since the day of the fire and the first time I’ve seen the devastation up close. We’re the first to arrive, and I’m tempted to call everyone and tell them to turn around and go home. There’s nothing left but a few twisted appliances and several feet of ash. “We’ll never find anything,” I grumble. The gang arrives and we’re all a little overwhelmed at first. Everyone picks a different room and starts to dig. “An archaeological dig is on my bucket list,” a friend says, “This is probably as close as I’ll get.” We begin to find a few artifacts – rusted metal, mostly, then a couple of unbelievable finds, a pair of ceramic vases from China – fully intact if a little discolored, the Black Hills gold ring my mom received as a teenager that had just been given to me months before, David’s dad’s military retirement document – burned completely around the edges but still recognizable in the middle. The books in our library are still smoldering, even after almost two week and two inches of rain the night before. We find what’s left of the satellite receiver. I can’t wait to send it back to the company. Where the linen closet used to be, my friend makes a huge discovery in the middle of the ashes. Several pieces of my great-great grandmother’s quilt are intact – burned around the edges but perfect in the middle. Pieces that are at least a square foot each. The only linens recovered from the house. Others search for my jewelry stash, hoping to find wedding rings and family heirlooms. We don’t find those, but among the 10 or so things we find are my diamond hoop earrings. Still in good enough shape to wear. I find it strange how meaningful these little treasures are and how random it seems to be. In each room, we find something. After two hours, we’ve completed the search. We load up our few things, thank our friends and family, and leave. There’s closure now. We know there’s no more reason to search. It’s all gone.

Day 13: August 15
Today we go to church, come home to eat lunch, and then move Lauren 3 blocks across campus into her dorm room. She’s thrilled to be independent. We miss her already. An hour after we leave, she calls me and wants me to come back to see her visitors. When I get there, I am surprised to find about 10 Governor’s School scholars and staff members crowded in her tiny dorm room. They’ve come to wish her well and to present me with a large check. I cry for the third time.

Day 14: August 16
Today my Africa necklace comes in the mail. Tracy says, “You don’t owe me anything. This one is on me.” Once again I am struck by the generosity of people and their capacity to care. I see people across campus. They ask how we’re doing. “Okay,” I respond, and I know that it’s true. I call my husband and invite him out to dinner. We go to a great restaurant and then to Lowe’s to buy a washer and dryer. The manager gives us 10% off. Another gift. We go home and sit on the couch together, with the tv off. We’ve gone from 250 tv channels to 3. I think it’s good for us. I’m reminded of the early days of our marriage, almost 20 years ago, when pretty much all we had was each other. That’s where we are again. And I’d rather it be that than a house full of stuff. We’re okay. We really are.