Out of Africa

Look out Uganda - this star (he's a little older now and eats more often, I hope, with utensils) will be on his way soon. You get to keep him for just a short while, though - so don't charm him too much while he's there because this momma needs him back.

When he said that he wanted to study abroad, I encouraged him with as much courage as I could muster. I believe it's an incredible opportunity for college students to not only see the world but to also experience in a way not possible when they're older, more settled and only have two-weeks vacation time. I secretly hoped, though, that he'd choose a country in this hemisphere. After all, students from America study in Europe or Central America all the time and come home positively changed and it seems easy for their parents to keep in touch whilst they're away. Easy. Done. I can do that.

Matthew Thomas however, changed by his trip to the Dominican Republic the summer after his senior year, wanted to explore the economies of more third world countries. And for him, that meant a program he discovered in Uganda.
He wants to explore.

My explorer, will be in a country so far away and so foreign to me that I am at once thrilled and frightened. I am thrilled that he gets to explore Africa - or at least one part of this mysterious, 'dark continent'. And I am frightened that he will be on this mysterious, 'dark continent' that is so far away it will take him nearly a day to fly there. I am anxious to hear the stories he will share when he returns, see how the experience shapes and changes his perspectives, and to give him a hug of homecoming that will hopefully embarrass the crap out of him because I'll be crying and won't want to let go! (be ready, Matthew!)
But first, he has to board a plane on February 1 and leave. And then for three months, I will have to rely on Facebook chat and email to get a sense of how he his doing on the other side of the world.

I am sure I will cry a few times (please note the sarcasm oozing out of the phrase ' a few times') and I will be praying constantly for his safe arrival, time there and return home. Someone asked me recently, "How can you let him go?" and I cannot remember my reply. I do know, this, however, how can we, as parents, do anything but 'let our children go'. It's the truth of parenting - we raise them up to let them go. And Matthew chose to go to Africa; where he will be for three months soaking up all the knowledge and experience he can to bring back with him to add to the fabric that makes up this wonderful young man.

Part of me, however, still wishes he would have chosen to study abroad in Canada.