Dulac Reflect

I have been stalling a bit on writing this entry. I have absolutely no idea to express in words all that I experienced and felt in the 9 days of the Dulac, Louisiana mission trip.

2 weeks ago today I was saying good-bye to those that we went to serve. Miss Naomi and her grandchildren. As I have debriefed with those around me, I have hands down shared that meeting Sa'aeedah and Zaire was the highlight of my week. We arm wrestled, played football, talked about school, jumped rope and went to visit them at their schools. Sa'aeedah's tenacity blew me away. My favorite quote was when we were playing football and she sized up Ali and I and said, "If we going to beat them boys, I'm gonna have to run this ball." And she did...and she scored...

2 weeks ago today I was taking one of my last drives through the bayou of Louisiana. Many times over I internally asked myself, is this the same country I live in day in and day out? Houses on stilts. Bayou water everywhere. Hurricane evidence around every corner. I was culturally stretched and I am not even quite sure how this part of the trip has impacted my heart yet. I continue to process...

2 weeks ago today I had spent 7 solid days with 26 other people. We slept together, ate together, prayed together and laughed together. Oh the laughter. Selfishly, this was my favorite part of the trip was the joyful laughter. We danced everywhere we went. We sang all sorts of songs. We talked about our families. We shared our faith stories. It was the first time in my story I had spent that much concentrated time in the body of Christ. It was rich and will be treasured always.

Coming home was tough. I felt pretty foggy those first few days. Work was busy. The boys got sick. I was emotional trying to process what I had just experienced and how this was all going to play out here back in MN...this part of the journey is still being written. What I will say is that I have a core group of new EBC family members from Dulac that I have been able to see and process with several times. We hope to continue serving and praying together on a regular basis.

I hope to have pictures linked to Shutterfly soon...