Girl Kaleidoscope

Tag: Pngbushmissions

  • When the story must be told

    “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” — C.S. Lewis

    I still hesitate before pressing “publish.”

    Even after all this time, after all these words spilled across pages and screens, the act of telling my story still catches in my throat. I hesitate—not because I don’t want to tell it, but because I know what happens when I do.

    I know the quiet messages that will slip into my inbox, the ones that say, “I saw myself in your words.” I know the relief, the resonance, the unexpected companionship that comes from someone else recognising their own battle scars in my own. And I know the ones who will say nothing, but will sit with my words in their hands, weighing them carefully, deciding what to do with them.

    And I know the ones who will turn away.

    I have lost friendships to my honesty. And I have kept friendships by withholding it. By making my stories palatable, neat enough to be consumed without discomfort. I have shaped my words to be just raw enough to be heard, but not so raw that they wound.

    Because what happens when you tell the truth?

    What happens when you stop only speaking of the sunsets over the valley, the church choirs harmonising under the trees, the joy of seeing light dawn in someone’s eyes? When you stop telling only the beautiful parts of mission life and begin to talk about the fractures beneath?

    What happens when you say: It was not always good. It was not always safe. And sometimes, the wounds came from the very people who should have held me close.

    What happens when you admit that you are still carrying bruises from the hands of people who called you sister? When you say that you loved deeply, but you were not always loved well? That you wanted to believe in your calling, but the weight of it sometimes crushed you? That you believed in sacrifice, but you didn’t know it would be your own heart on the altar?

    The risk of speaking is the risk of being unheard.

    And yet, I keep speaking.

    Because I am still waiting for the one voice that matters most to say, “I see you. I hear you. I’m sorry.”

    Because I am still waiting for the redemption of these stories.

    Or perhaps, I am still raging, and I am not quite redeemed yet.

    But maybe that is part of it, too. Maybe not every story is wrapped up in a tidy bow, ready to be tied off with a quiet, holy conclusion. Maybe some stories are still burning. Maybe some stories are still being written in the ashes.

    And maybe that’s okay.

    Because in the telling, there is movement. And in the movement, there is healing. And in the healing—slow, unsteady, incomplete—there is hope.

    So I will press “publish” again.

    And I will trust that somewhere, someone will read these words and whisper, “What! You too?”And in that moment, neither of us will be alone.

  • The light that calls me back

    It is easy, sometimes, to be swallowed by the dark. To let the weight of what was painful drown out the echoes of joy. But someone reminded me recently: do not forget the light. Do not forget the reason your heart still aches for the place you left behind, why you dream in the colors of the highlands, why you still whisper the names of friends into the quiet spaces of your prayers.

    PNG changes you. It does not leave you untouched. It presses into your spirit like rain into dry earth, reshaping you, flooding the cracks, making something new. And for all the hardship, for all the things that hurt, there was so much light.

    I remember the friendships that bloomed in that rugged, untamed land. The faces that met mine with warmth, with laughter, with hands that offered fruit and flowers and welcome. I remember stepping into homes made of woven walls and thatched roofs, where I was given the best seat, the first plate, the widest smile. Where hospitality was not measured by riches, but by the open-hearted way love was given, freely and without condition.

    And I remember God—how near He felt. How the mountains seemed to hum with His presence, how the rivers carried His voice, how the sunsets painted the sky with a glory too breathtaking to be coincidence.

    The work was hard, and the challenges relentless, but in the midst of it all, I felt held. Because what we did mattered. Because lives were being changed. Because in the eyes of the people we served, I saw something holy—something raw and real and closer to the heart of God than any church building could contain.

    I miss it. I miss the sky so wide it felt like eternity stretching open. I miss the dirt roads and the scent of burning wood and the way the rain came in sheets so thick the world disappeared. I miss the way creativity poured out of me there, how my soul felt awakened in a way I have never quite been able to replicate.

    PNG is not just a place. It is a transformation. It strips you down and builds you anew. It is where I was challenged and broken, but also where I was found. And though I left, though I had to walk away, it still calls me. The friendships, the beauty, the sense of purpose—I carry them with me, woven into the fabric of who I am.

    I will not forget the hard things. But neither will I forget the light. Because the light is what calls me back.