Close your eyes.

Sometimes all I have to do is close my eyes and I'm there again. There in the hot van squished in the back seat between Connor and Bekah, bumping down the dirt road as we travel around the mountains. There sitting in the dining area with the new, sweet friends whom I wish I could see again. Sitting there laughing with them as if I'd known them my whole life when we only just met. I close my eyes and suddenly I'm There, shaking, heart racing in front of thousands and thousands of people who have lived lives much different from mine, all staring at the stage listening to me tell them about a little girl in their city who was healed of fractured legs that day. Sometimes I close my eyes and I'm standing in line for breakfast, and James hands me a piece of toast with Jelly and a cup of goat milk. And I thank him kindly and go sit with Tori, who puts on my ragman skit makeup that morning, and then I sit next to my long lost sister Caitlin.

Sometimes I close my eyes and I'm dancing to some electronic american music among a bunch of little kids who love to jump and dance. The teachers are giving us strange looks, but the kids love it. I close my eyes and see the little boy whose hand I shook in greeting, and I remember meeting his eyes in just that one moment, and I felt our hearts connect. From one heart to another. And he looked deep into my eyes, smiling. His belly was empty, and he had no shoes, and he was in a crowd of hundreds of little kids, in a city of thousands of people, in a continent full of millions of injustices, and he took my hand and looked deep into my eyes and smiled.

God, I want to go back.

I have to go back to them.

 I need to see them again and I want to love them and I want to sit in the dirt with them and listen to them and let them teach me. Not because America thinks it's nice to help poor people. Not because I want to be a cliche American girl who thinks that Africa Needs her. Those African children don't need her and her riches and healing and education. That girl needs THEM. She needs their eyes, their hearts, and their mentality and humility. Together, we need you, Lord. Because your heart for them has been rooted deep within me, and it has become a part of who I am, I must go back to the Nations. You've given me your heart for the fatherless, the brokenhearted, the captive, and those who need justice. And they need you. And together, we need You.