I can’t believe Poland is getting close again. And yet, I haven’t even dreamed yet of walking the streets of Gdansk after dark with a cup of coffee in my hand. Somehow, over the past few years, something inside me has been telling me that it was time to set out. To be with people close to me, and to return to a comfortable world. For a while.
I think I’ve made a home here, in Mozambique — with my soul, too.
A week ago, I created a new note on my phone: “Before we leave.” And I started cleaning out every nook and cranny. That’s a sign, because I always clean and reorganize the house before flying to Poland. The same tidying happens inside me, in the form of a question: “What have I actually done here in Mozambique over the past few months?”
As if I were putting the world I have here in order. As if I were putting myself in order, in the context of this place. So that when I’m there, and someone asks, I’ll know without hesitation — why I’m here and how I am here. Or maybe I need to keep checking that for myself, over and over again?
This time, when I think about Poland, I feel sad. Because, in a way, I am going home. To familiar cities and familiar places. Not as a tourist.
In Gdansk, I have my own thirty square meters. And an official address. And a mailbox. I have my own clinic and my library. My favorite café, where I used to spend hours back when I was a student. And people I have known longer than anyone in Mozambique.
I’m going back for a while, like I do every year.
And yet I’m going back as if I had nowhere to go.
And it weighs on me more and more. With every passing year. The stress of the question: where will we live? On top of all the things we have to fit into two months. And still find time to rest. And spend time with people. And give our sons the Polish holidays they wait for all year.
Is this what emigration feels like?
I don’t really like that word. I didn’t emigrate. I followed Jesus. I am here because He still wants me here. And yet so many of the struggles are the same.
So is Gdansk my home if I have to look for a place for us there as though I were flying to Lisbon for a holiday? But it is my Gdansk, after all, not some foreign city from a guidebook. The one I began getting to know in Dolny Wrzeszcz, with its old tenement houses. With the sea shimmering in shades of grey. With the shipyard cranes carrying the weight of history. And Polishness.
We’re coming back, but we still don’t know where.
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We have four big things ahead of us here before we fly out at the beginning of December. A trip to Pemba and the rebuilding of a house for displaced people that was destroyed when a cyclone passed through. Two evangelistic outreaches in villages deep in the bush. And a meeting for young women about the menstrual cycle and personal hygiene.
God opened the doors to all of this for us in His own royal style. All glory to Him!
We’re also grateful to every person who makes this possible. Because, as it’s known for a long time, we’re not doing this alone.
That’s all from me today — already on the road.
And if what we’re doing in Mozambique speaks to your heart, I’ll leave here a link to Buy Me a Coffee platform. Our life here is a beautifully complicated combination of love, prayer, faith, and the financial support of many people.
Thank you! 🤍