Softened

"Do you think you've changed?" she asked me as she sat across the table from me, licking her ice cream cone. 

I stopped, almost frozen, thinking deeply about her question until a drop of melted ice cream plopped off the cone and onto the table, snapping me back into reality. 

I have now been in Africa for three months, and I have. I have changed. You can't be here for more than a day and not be changed. I just didn't know how to articulate it. 

Perhaps my definition of heat has changed. I used to be like a pansie, that cute little flower that can survive any frost but will wither up and die in the heat. Now, I can sleep when it's 100 degrees in my room at night, and I don't notice so much any more when drops of sweat roll down my back. 

Or take the dust for example. The concept of dusting has definitely changed for me. Back in the United States, my mom taught me to dust once a week to remove the fine layer from all surfaces. Here, that same layer of dust accumulates in one day...or one hour if I accidentally leave my window open during the busy part of the day. I used to think it was unbelievable, but now it's just a normal part of life. 

My feet have changed. I used to hate having dirty feet. Even more, I used to hate having anything stuck to the bottom of my feet. I had to get over that quickly! Now, my soft tender feet have turned dusty and hard. I love the feeling of dirt in between my toes or stuck to my heels. I love kicking off my shoes at the door and going barefoot through the house, even if crumbs stick to the bottom of my feet because Beniti has been eating bread and leaving a trail behind him. 

I used to cringe when I found whole pieces of fish in my spaghetti for dinner. I tried to avoid them completely, or at least pick delicately around the bones and the scaly skin. Now, I just eat it all, thankful for the protein. 

I used to not like cucumbers or tomatoes. Now, I eat them plain and raw. A slice of tomato in between two slices of cucumber with a sliver of onion is likely my favorite snack.

I can now change my own tire. I can communicate creatively. I can text with an old keypad - you know, where you have to press the number 2 three times to get the letter c. 

Yes, I have changed, but the heat, the dust, the food - that's not really what's changed the most in me. 

"You have changed," she said to me, "but I don't really know how to explain it." This time, I was sitting across the table from a different woman, a woman who has been mentoring me the past three months. I had not asked her how I had changed, but she gave her observation voluntarily. 

"I think you are...." she paused, "...softer." She continued to explain, "Not that you were incredibly hard before, but I see a new kind of softness within you." 

After three months in Africa, what has changed the most is my heart. I have a dependency on Christ that I did not have to have when I lived an independent life in the United States. I didn't realize how much I survived without him until I needed him for every moment when I came to Africa. I now have a depth to my faith that could have only been developed my moving alone to a foreign place. 

My heart has new eyes and a new concept of the real world - not a world where you always have the money you need to get what you want, to treat yourself, to live comfortably with a job and hobbies in a carpeted, air-conditioned house, but a world where people work hard to buy one meal at a time, where kids live on the streets, where there are never enough jobs, where handicapped kids have no place to receive special care, where people can't go to the doctor because they can't pay, where poverty and disease and conflict and fear are real life. 

And I have a bigger picture of God. A God who is African and speaks many languages. A God who is global and cultural. A God who saved the whole world and who can relate intimately with every tribe and people group. A God who never runs out of love and compassion. Never runs out. Never gets tired. Never gets compassion fatigue. He sees all the suffering in the world and is not overwhelmed or overcome by it, but extends mercy after mercy after mercy to his people. A God who holds the universe in his hands with vast strength, yet who delicately carries and protects my own fragile heart.

And because of all those things, I have. I have become softer. 

I know how to answer my friend, the one who sits across from me and licks her ice cream cone. Africa hasn't changed me. God has. He has shown me his world and the people in it whom he loves, and he has begun to change my heart into a heart a little more like his. A heart that loves heat and dust and cucumbers and crumbs. A heart that loves barefoot children, big-bellied babies, and the sweet old lady that begs on the corner. A heart that looks into the eyes of those who suffer instead of turning away. A heart that is not overwhelmed by the suffering of the world, but that just wants to share a piece of love and compassion with those who hurt. A heart that is not hardened by injustice, but softened by the greatness of the love of Jesus Christ.