There is so much.

I arrived in my new country of residence late on Sunday night, and it’s been a non-stop week since then.  I’ve met with the staff, been introduced to a hundred different important people that I need to try to remember, I’ve visited offices and restaurants and coffee shops and hotels, asked a million questions and came up with two million more.  

There is so much. 

There is so much need. Several meetings ended up being a long discussion pointing out all the lack; there is never enough money, food, supplies, space, and trained personnel to adequately care for the thousands of children abandoned, abused, bought and sold.   It can be disheartening, but at the same time, there is so much strength. Determination. Grit.  I’ve met some incredibly inspiring people who work with almost nothing in deplorable conditions and yet… they keep trying.  They keep showing up and doing the best they can with what they have.  

There is so much broken. The adults in the room have lived through a heinous civil war, many of them forced to fight or flee and certainly live in fear.  Just as things were really starting to look up here, Ebola hit and decimated the population and the progress they had made.  There are broken systems and broken buildings and broken people. There is so much apathy, and I can understand why.  And yet…

There is so much hope. The first peaceful transfer of power in decades happened in January and you can still feel the energy in the government, in the streets, in the hearts and words of the people.  There is so much growth, and possibility, and ideas, and goodness ahead. They have survived and thrived and it’s absolutely remarkable.

There is so much beauty. I was able to escape the dust and noise of the city to see a program implementation a few hours from the capital; the lush green countryside fed my soul and lowered my blood pressure.  The brilliant fabrics, the red dirt, the earnest faces and waves and smiles beckon my heart to relax into this place, to let it become home.  

There is so much I want to do.  So much. Just within this organization I have things to accomplish in relation to operational efficiency and organization, to finance, to program development, monitoring and evaluation, policy, partnerships, funding and development, personnel, training and staff development… on and on.  It feels like I’m standing at the base of a mountain to climb. 

It would be easy to say I feel overwhelmed but I don’t.  Somehow the last ten years of development experience has broken through my achiever tendencies and I’m really excited to start climbing the mountain, one step at a time.  The next step?  Move in to my apartment tomorrow, bring order to the chaos, unpack the suitcases I’ve been living out of for weeks and weeks, and take a deep breath. The rest will come. 

There is so much gratitude, in me, that I get to do this, that my friends and family support me, that I’ve been welcomed here with open arms and I’ve been gifted just the right skills, abilities, and passions for this season in this place.   Thank you, from the depths.