Beginning on February 2, a group of ten people from different levels of
the ELCA spent ten days immersed in the realities of interfaith engagement in
Senegal. This trip was part of the work of an ELCA inter-unit task force
supporting the Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV), and sought to make
connections between interfaith dialog and understanding, community development,
and peace-building. It was a very diverse group, a very interesting and
interested group, one that asked lots of questions and wasted no time getting
to know things and people here in Senegal.
Just a few days after they went back to the US (a day late, as it turns
out, thanks to a snowed-in Washington/Dulles Airport) my mother arrived with
two of our oldest, dearest family friends. They stayed a good two weeks, during
which time we visited some of the same places we had with the DOV group (Gorée,
CCGN, La Brioche D’Orée…), and a few
places we hadn’t (Thiadiaye, Mar Lodge, Keur Moussa, Toubab Diallaw). This was
my mom’s fifth trip to Senegal, but Dave and Andrea’s first. They, too, were
quite adventurous, getting into bargaining, chatting with lots of different despite
language barriers, and asking lots of good questions.
As nearly all of the visitors said to me at one time or another, one way or another, it is indeed tiring to have visitors—and even more tiring to have them two very different groups practically back to back. There are arrangements to be made, cultural explanations to be given, and near-constant translations and interpretations to be offered. Having visitors pulls me out of my routine—makes me put off certain things that usually I would do, triage certain activities, let some “regular” stuff go to make time for things they want to do.
But what really struck me after having nearly an entire month of visitors is how refreshing it is to have new eyes to see things through, new ways for putting responses or reactions into words, new appreciation for Senegalese life in general and the work of the ELCA and its companions here in particular. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. Call it the seven-year itch (although I’m closer to the end of year eight) or maybe the just normal “senioritis” of being in month nineteen of what ends up being a twenty-one month cycle between home assignments. But so much here was starting to annoy me, to frustrate me, at times even to make me mad.
Then come these groups of visitors, almost all of whom were coming for the first time. They see what I’ve failed to see in my familiarity, my fatigue, my frustration. They see honest-to-goodness hospitality where my cynical self wonders what people are up to. They hear real live interfaith dialog and mutual understanding, where I have come to hear only party-line rhetoric about everyone living in peace and harmony. They experience the faith-filled witness of members of a minority faith, speaking a minority language—both of which they proudly claim as their own, while I roll my eyes that we’re doing hymns #12 and #15 again.
Through these visitors, through these newcomers I have the opportunity—the privilege, really—to experience Senegal for the first time all over again. It reminds me of how special a place this is, and how incredible it is to actually live here, to be involved in the exceptional work here. A month of visitors has helped me imagine several more months of life and ministry here. New eyes, new ears, a renewed spirit—I’ve received a dose of each these past two months.
So keep coming, you visitors! Keep bringing your fresh perspectives, your new twist on the oft-asked question, your legitimate excitement to be able to experience that which I too often take for granted. Keep reminding us what brought us here in the first place.
Grace and Peace,
Peter
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