For the last few weeks, I've felt overwhelmed whenever I've considered how to encapsulate all the experiences 2022 brought for me and my loved ones in just one blog post. As a result, I've have several times set aside those thoughts to focus on more manageable pursuits. Life this side has been full of worthy distractions and excuses to keep me from facing my memories of 2022. We have been in the midst of a heatwave, been living with constant load shedding (some days we have had 11+ hours with no power), had a full 72 hours with no power and subsequent loss of water on top of all the gloriously full responsibilities of daily life here at LIV Lanseria. Perhaps the insurmountably of the task ultimately landed on a lack of a workable framework by which to adequately explain the monstrosity of those 365 days.
This week while I was searching my bookshelf for the next book I would take my Bible study group through I picked up a book I had read at the end of 2021. Nestled in its pages I found an end of the year journaling activity called YearCompass created to help a person reflect on the past year and plan for the one to come. It’s a journaling exercise that one of my besties introduced me to years ago and it has been a regular part of my entry into each new year. It’s a lovely resource and suggest you check it out here. The one tucked into the book was from 2021 going into 2022 and I can’t remember the last time I read through it. One of the prompts encourages you to select a word for the year and the word I chose for 2022 was embrace (to accept or support a belief, theory or change willingly and enthusiastically). Oof! Little Miss 2021 Nicole had no idea what was coming! The prompts then asked me to craft a few sentences about the year to come to which I wrote:
- This year, I will be bravest when… having to surrender to the will of God the Father in my life and in the lives of those I love.
- This year I will say yes when… You ask me to embrace things that I want to fight.
- This year I will advise myself to… listen and obey more fully, with joy and enthusiasm.
- This year will be special for me because… I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living… His nearness to me is life!
I wrapped up the journal with my “secret wish” for 2022, to which I wrote:
Joy in obedience. Wisdom for daily choices that will lead to more freedom, peace, strength and growth. To embrace the privilege of “hard dirt”…wherever and however it comes. To walk more confidently in the dance of connection and correction with the One who knows and loves me best. To step into the ring with arms open wide.
I didn’t have any clue what was coming but I see now that my loving Father was already planting seeds into my heart and mind that He would water, grow, and harvest in the year ahead. The pruning and uprooting had already begun weeks before things began to unravel in February of 2022.
The basic, biased, ridiculously brief and extremely vague timeline of my recollection of 2022 goes something like this:
January
We had been aware (for months and months) that we were not going to have all of our re-registration ducks in row before our certificate expired. We had been in communication with our local government office and we thought we were walking a clear path to re-registration. We knew of several other CYCCs (Child and Youth Care – the type of registration El Roi Baby Home had) who were also struggling to receive the documents they needed to be compliant with re-reregistration requirements post COVID. All the anecdotal evidence pointed to a scenario where, ,if we were not able to re-register, we would not be able to accept new children but we would be able to continue caring for the children presently in our care.
February
It became clear to us that the governing body in our region had every intention to forcefully remove children from our home if we were unable to meet all the requirements for re-registration. The main bone of contention had (and still has) to do with approved building plans. The property that El Roi sits on does not belong to LIV Lanseria but to the Anglican Church; we are just renters. Due to all the time passed since the buildings on our property were built, changes of municipality lines, districts and offices, heightened interpretation of the requirements for how and which plans are accepted and as well as a lack of funds we were unable to submit approved building plans. Subsequently and sadly, the Child Protection Organization (CPO) who had placed the 12 babies in our care received court orders demanding their removal from our home.
March – May
In the hopes that our children would be able to be returned to our home and in an effort to help reduce the trauma of this abrupt and unexpected move my team and I clicked into survival mode and did the best we could with the cards we had been dealt. We worked with our CPO and were able to locate two places of safety where the majority of our children could move to together (one little man was moved to another trusted CYCC by himself). My team was divided up and transported to two separate locations day and night while I moved to one of the sites to live full time until we could get our kiddos back into our care. The sacrifice was great, the pain was deep and in the end we began to understand and finally accept that these precious babies were not ever coming back to us at El Roi. During these months my team of Aunties bore the burden of working in spaces that were not our own and not always welcoming, adding an hour (at least) commute both ways to their already long working days, dealing with a less-then-her-best boss and the weight of surrendering children we loved to other teams. During this time I was able to participate in three of our children’s adoptions and was able to prepare memory boxes for each of these precious babies, chronicling the story of their time with us at El Roi before we surrendered them fully into their new spaces.
June
This month was all about triage for my team and trying to heal some of the ruptures that happened between us during that crisis. I am grateful for a team who chose to stick together, forgive one another and who chose to keep their eyes on Jesus, looking to Him for what to do next. We came up with a plan for the rest of the year to train up our Aunties to study to become Child and Youth Care Workers (helping with our compliance regulations, allowing us to protect the investment we had made in our Aunties and honour them by upskilling them and keeping them employed).
July – December
I flew home for a previously planned four month furlough that extended into 6 months when we got to October and El Roi hadn’t been re-registered. I got COVID (for the first and only time) within a week of landing on America soil. I began the painstaking process of letting the Lord stitch up the broken parts of my heart, thinking and believing – a journey that I am still on. I spent hours just sitting in my parent’s pool. I had the privilege of going to weekly counselling sessions that my church helped sponsor. I got to go on fun adventures with my sister, parents and friends. I got re-engage with my home church and got plugged in serving on the worship team, attending prayer meetings and a Bible study. I soaked up American luxuries like uncapped, high-speed internet and streaming services, Amazon prime and copious options for delicious food choices that could be delivered right to my doorstep. I set El Roi and my hope of serving in South Africa before the Lord and in His kindness He gave me peace to return and pursue the direction for the next season of service at LIV Lanseria.
There is much, much more to unpack from 2022 than these one thousand six hundred thirty six words can say – some things which I am still processing and just beginning to have right perspective on. But this feels like a good place to stop for now. I know now, more than ever, that learning to truly embrace God’s will for my story, willingly and enthusiastically, is a daily and lifelong calling and pursuit. And as much as I dislike and would choose to typically avoid the hard and difficult “dirt” that 2022 held, I can say with grace and humility, just like the Hunter Brothers that:
I grow better in hard dirt
I dig deeper when the river runs dry
Struggle makes me stronger
Keeps me reaching for the sky
You don't know what the rain's worth
‘til it finds you out in the desert
Learning how my heart works
I grow better in hard dirt
I grow better in hard, hard dirt
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I appreciate you love and support. I wouldn’t be able to make it through any difficult season in this call without the camaraderie and prayer from my brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you for helping me process and providing a safe place for me to land in all my hard seasons. Love you!
