Sometimes you are so homesick you can taste it.
And today it tastes like birthday cake.
My little brother turns 8 today. And I am not there. But worse than that, my oldest son is not there.
Jackson and Karabo; Karabo and Jackson.
They have been friends since Jackson was playing soccer on my inside, long before he and Karabo would kick a ball around on the outside.
Pete and I had come home after ten years away from South Africa and we brought our first and as yet unborn baby with us. Together we met Karabo. He had just turned three and celebrated his birthday as well as his first year with my parents. Every nook and cranny of every heart in my parents’ household was covered in Karabo’s prints.
Karabo is a Setswana name meaning “an Answer.”
For our family, Karabo was the answer to many questions.
For example, what can God do with the little we offer?
My parents had been moved by a particular verse in the book of James:
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” James 1:27
So, they asked a local social worker that they knew if she would introduce them to families that needed support. Families of orphans. Families known eloquently as “child-headed households.” She set up several home visits with several families. My parents planned to deliver care packages, food, clothes. They did not plan to begin an adoption journey.
But then they met the first family.
You know how the story goes. Five thousand hungry people, no food or markets in sight. One little boy, five loaves and two fish. And the rest is history.
Except that it isn’t.
Because God kept multiplying and multiplying and multiplying what my parents had set out to do. He broke their expectations and offered them back new ones, greater ones, more satisfying ones. He broke apart their plan and offered back his own and it filled up spaces in our home we didn’t know were there until our family was eventually multiplied by one little boy.
And what that little boy gives back to us cannot be measured by human hands.
Especially since he’s not so little anymore. And I bet he’s a lot bigger than the last time Jackson saw him. The last time they went swimming. The last time they gave each other piggy back rides. The last time they made like rockstars and played their guts out on the guitar that Jackson still jams with daily.
The last time that Karabo raced through the departure gates for one last, desperate good-bye.
When you ask Jackson what South Africa means to him,
the answer is always Karabo.
Happy Birthday big boy.
Ons mis jou net so hard, so diep, so lank, so wyd soos ons jou lief het.
(We miss you just as strong, deep, tall, and wide as we love you).
Oh I know the pang (and taste) of homesickness! From birthday cake, to wedding cake to just everyday cake…
Thanks for sharing part of your parents journey and the joy they have recieved. :)
Saw him a few weeks ago at Lynnwood Ridge Shopping Mall and he announced that his birthday was approaching with such glee that I had to laugh. He is edible he is so cute!! Precious precious memories for you. I am missing all four my kids birthdays this year…yes my daughter-in-law is mine now! I know how you feel skattie…
Ag, so many things to miss – koeksisters, melktert, rooibos tea, rusks, sunshine, boerewors and droe wors, biltong and eskimo pie! ;) So, how is it that you are strolling through Lynnwood Ridge when I thought you were in Nigeria?
I have rooibos tea at my house from my sister-in-law! I can bring some to you when we travel to DC end of May…I know this is a two year old post. I am really un-lurking, very quickly. I’ll try not to comment on every post I read. I’ve only been through Pretoria once, lovely Jacaranda’s still had flowers (late October). What a sweet boy…lovely.
Awwww, they are adorable together! Now you’re making me homesick for the “one little boy” that stole my heart…
So wishing those 3000 miles weren’t so far for both of us.
I know the pangs of homesickness! A deep longing and ache that creates a huge hole, untils it gets filled up with life for while. You brought tears to my eyes and made me want to beam you up and over to your homeland.
Yes, PLEASE! Beam me up Scotty, indeed!
Oh, Lisa-Jo,
I cried when I read your post. What a story. I’m with Tammy… a Star Trek transporter would be so useful right about now!
Prayers sent up on your behalf!
Thank you, Jenn. The Star Trek analogy gave me a great big grin – I have often dreamed of teleporting home. Maybe our kids’ generation will invent something like that, eh?
This one made the water well up. (But they aren’t tears. Cuz I don’t cry. Really.) I’m sorry you are feeling so homesick this week, but so glad that DC is also starting to feel like home.
Once again, you’ve tugged my heartstrings. We live a mere 22 hours from my family … but I miss birthday parties and piano recitals … and even more I miss spontaneous picnics and lazy Saturdays with everyone just “ending up” at one place sharing the day together.
((hugs)) my friend …
Yes, exactly – it’s the “everydayness” of being family that we miss the most. Those moments are just amplified on special event days. If only I had my own private plane…..
Oh, this is gorgeous and made me all weepy. I’ve got lots of little brothers having birthdays this months and I think I’m taking it for granted. Picking up the phone to love on them now…
i never knew about your little-est brother. i’m sorry for that ache in your heart for all you are missing back home…
hug?
Oh Lisa Jo.
My heart brims full and runs past me with rivers of joy.
I’m carried by the Father-Love in your words—
Ons mis jou net so hard, so diep, so lank, so wyd soos ons jou lief het.
I need to know more of this.
This South Africa.
I want my bones to feel its warmth and my voice to sing its song.
One day.
Oh sweet friend – you sing that song already. Everything in you fair hums with the Jesus music!
beautiful story, brought tears to my eyes! so sorry for your homesickness…. and I want to be like your parents :)
I loved the tenderness of this post. The realness of your down to the gut attachments. Love has a way of tangling us up forever no matter the distance our bodies stand from one another. The birthday cake was such an appropriate trigger. Celebration for such a God delivered love. That’s abundant living. Thanks so much for sharing with us.
my heart aches with you. you have such a precious family filled with deep love. thank you for sharing this shining example of selflessness and grace.
I know this feeling so well. My family is mostly so far away, and we spend too many birthdays peering at each other through Skype and not enough passing each other slices of cake. The missing is such a deep heart hurt, but it’s tempered by equally deep love and joy.
Some day my grandchildren will have Star Trek transporters and won’t understand all my talk of airplanes and buses and cars on bumpy roads. Until then, I’ll be dreaming of far away lands.
What struck out at me was something a little different, our plans aren’t always God’s plans. And, although our plans are fraught with good intentions they aren’t always best. God knows our past, presant and future and only he could knit such wonderful plans. If your parents hadn’t listened and obeyed God you would never have the tugging on your heart. Or, your sons heart. I know how hard that seperation is…
My granparents were foster parents. Always taking in needy children. Always opening their home offering love, support, compassion along with Jesus. Those kids, each and every one, left footprints on my heart. When my grandpa passed away I was overjoyed at the the reunion, one girl stole my heart at 13. Those footprints…that pain of loving…have built a family who longs to foster and adopt. Only God could have known what he was doing. By saying yes, my grandparents (in a way) are still fostering children.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? How he uses our story to write his own. Thank you for that beautiful glimpse into your grandparents and the story they are part of!
I can barely write through the tears…yes, the verse in James…could it be any clearer? And then, He always gives infinitely more than we ever give Him…I could definitely hug Karabo right with you–but I’d have to stand in a long line I see:)
His best gifts are often the most unexpected, aren’t they? :)
You have articulated an ache in my heart, too. It’s just from the other side. I stay put while friends and family move away. It’s hard to miss someone.
Yes, yes. Sometimes staying is harder than moving. So much to remind one of what’s missing. I know what you mean. It’s its own kind of ache, isn’t it?
I am homesick for my family too! It seems that Christmas really brings out the longing to see and hold the family so far away!
Doesn’t it though? Bet we’d all trade our gifts for a few familiar faces gathered together under the tree!
this makes me homesick for little ones not even mine yet.
Ons mis jou net so hard, so diep, so lank, so wyd soos ons jou lief het.
i need to remember this.
Yes, funny isn’t it how we can be homesick for even the things we don’t know yet. Or that we don’t know we’re missing. Strange thing, homesickness. It’s that perpetual ache I think of all the good and beautiful things of God that we all long for.
I can’t empathize, but I can sympathize as I watched my own mother long for her family. I’m praying for your comfort and a reunion soon.
What a beautiful family. I am touched by the example of those who read the Bible and actually do what it says!
Me too. Me too! I am constantly amazed by my parents. And they never seem to quite understand why….
What a beautiful heart your parents have and what a blessed little boy Karabo is!
He is something amazing, that’s for sure!
So beautiful! The only time in the Bible (I’m pretty sure.) that religion is mentioned. Must be pretty important to our Lord.
Wow, interesting point. I’d never thought of that before!
Oh, how I love this and the picture it paints. ESPECIALLY since we just chose an agency and are about to start training to become foster parents :-) We eventually want to adopt out of foster care and we couldn’t be more excited.
Maybe, just maybe, I can save just one of those kids from all the mistakes I made because I didn’t know love or think God remembered He had left me there in hell on earth for so long.
Praying for seeds to be planted, little hearts to finally know love, precious souls to be filled.
You’re something special, you know that? Thank you for offering up your heart and your home in such a big generous way. You will be someone’s favorite Christmas present this year, that’s for sure!!
I read this back in January and I cried. I’m sorry I didn’t comment on such a beautiful piece of writing. Thanks for sharing.
Oh no sorry necessary. Truly. Just knowing that people read. That they let me be part of their stories in a small way. It’s something remarkable. Thank you.
My youngest sister is a delicious chocolate brown and the absolute love of my children’s lives. My son (2) follows her around (she is almost 9) and wants to do whatever she is doing. My 6month old stares at her enamoured. She brings such a sparkle to my family and I often I thinkg God has used her as the glue when things have gotten hard. My husband and I will at some point leave the town we share with my family, while I am excited about moving forward, I dread leaving my family.