Church

When we went to church as small children.  The services would go on for a very long time.  I usually had to sit in church for the music and testimonies and so on.  Then we could go and sit in the car and play with our match box cars, or something.

We would lock the doors and the African kids would come and press their noses up against the window of the car to watch us.  I found it threatening.  They would call our mzungu, mzungu - meaning white person.  We wanted to call back to them black person, black person, and to stare them down, but it never seemed to make any difference.  When I was in Madagascar, people, especially children and young men, would call out after us, Vazaha, vazaha, which means white person in Malagasy.  If we were walking down the narrow alley ways to church.  I didn't like that much, either.

Church is difficult just now and has been for a long time.  All I want is a community of people who will love and accept me, and whom I can share life with - and who know how horrible it can be for a single person to go home for Sunday lunch on their own.