Email: Leslie Fuller

Dear Friends,

In Kenya, it is easy to get lost. I don’t mean that the cities are more difficult than most to navigate. Rather, it is common to tell someone that has not been seen in a while, “You have been lost!” 

This common phrase used to really irritate me. I understood that this is just the common way of acknowledging that it has been some time since our last meeting, but I still I found myself becoming defensive, thinking, “Why is it always my responsibility to see you? Haven’t you been lost too?”

In our office building it is easy to come to work every day and fail to see all of my colleagues, as we are spread over three floors. It is always interesting when one of them decides that I have been lost. I sit at my desk in the same office every day, but I am lost if I do not happen to cross paths with them or visit their office.

My host father uses this phrase a lot. He is the pastor at the church I attend each week, and he and his family have been unequivocally welcoming to me, beginning even before the first night I stayed with them, which was a few days after I landed in Kenya. He is the pastor of several different parishes, so even if I go to church every week it is possible that I will not see him for a few weeks at a time. My host siblings are usually at home, and I always make sure to greet them.

Often, when I do see my host father at church, he begins our conversation with “My daughter, you have been lost!” (Even though I have been at church every week and he has been gone, I am still the lost one.)  I joke that indeed I have been there, and the conversation continues. While it sets a fun tone for our time together, I often wonder if there will ever be an occasion to greet him when I have not been lost. I don’t like the feeling that I am neglecting my relationship with them.

One Monday morning, my host father came to my office. I had seen him the day before and stayed after the service to eat lunch with him and the rest of the family. Surely, this would be a time I had not been lost. When he was leaving, he said to me, “Now don’t get lost.” I almost had my usual defensive reaction, but then I realized that this would was how he always parts ways with me.

No matter how frequently he sees me, he will always encourage me to return home soon. I am thankful for my new family as well as my family at home, which loves me enough to let me leave for a while. I cannot get lost.

Grace and peace,

Leslie