Saying Good Bye

First of all I apologize for the unbelievable length's of the posts. I know that everyone is to busy to read even a quarter of what I wrote but in my defense..it was just a way to purge. I was confronted with so many emotions and on days when I was by myself that’s when the little devils creeped up on me and danced on my heart....not a good feeling. So anyway....sorry :)

Summation on trip: It was mountain top one day and ocean floor the next. Crazy...but it definitely did something to me. There were 2 days where...well...let’s just say lonely thoughts were roaming in the mind.  Again, begging God to take me....but again no answer....no nothing. Just me hearing myself weep like I was looking and listening in from the other room...really strange. There were several days of spending time with friends and family that were PRICELESS!! At around the 3 1/2 week mark I began to feel very exhausted...in my heart. I didn’t know how much more battering I could take. Well, at the little beach town just outside of Cape Town where Nancy and I had talked about retiring at (she making pizza and me making beer of course) I found out that the “squeezing” wasn’t over. The first day I took a long walk on the beach. It’s off season and I was the only person for as far as I could see in both directions....here it comes...the deep wave of isolation and loneliness. The questions, and then of course the anger....I am so totally text book...God must just shake His head....however I will say that I will forever have empathy for people who go through this kind of specialized torture. In what seemed like an eternity I got through it and walked back to the house.... and then the day ended up really nice as Kyle and I went to a little fisherman’s bar and watched a Rugby game (still not sure of the rules but that is a man’s game!!). Next day...the day before I was to fly back to Nashville....was a nice quiet day as Rolf had to do some work and I tried to help Lizzie with getting ready to leave to go back to Cape Town (sorry Liz!!). No pain, no weirdness...just a nice day.

What had really happened on the beach occurred to me a couple of days ago......I was saying goodbye. Not just to the dream we once had....a beautiful crazy exotic dream of living on the west coast of Africa....but to the “two shall become as one”. That is no more...and it was like I was saying good bye to Nance...which I didn’t get to do on June 28th 2010. It hurts to write it....stabs....but I know it’s true. And I have come home a little tougher, a little more resolved. Acceptance is slowly dripping in like a leaky faucet. 

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. C.S. Lewis

So now..... I shall say good bye to what was...... and hello to what shall be.

Thank you to all of you for your prayers and financial support. You completely amaze me!!

May It Be So

I hope you don’t mind how much I untie or unpack not only the African journey but the main journey as a whole. I don’t think you do so that’s why I try to revel as much of my thoughts the best I can...good and bad. I have been all over the place physically and emotional which has been very strange indeed. I find myself in one frame of mind one moment and in the next instant a trigger of some sort, an African meal, a picture, a chair, an afghan made by Nancy’s hands.....throws me into that dreaded place of being numb yet feeling such intense inner pain. Once it passes I then try to move on with (what one friend of mine called) the maintenance of life. Thanks Steve Geyer....I have stolen that from you and used it many times!

Case in point, I’m sitting in the home of the Weichardt’s Friday afternoon (today) waiting for Lizzie to come home to go grab a bite. I am watching some news and decide to change the channel. I hit the forward button...and of all freaking things to pop up on the screen is.........Pahappahooey Island. This was the kids program that Nancy wrote all of the most incredible funny lyrics for. It was kind of a crazy gift she had that even she didn’t even know she had. I would write crazy music and she would throw on really brilliant but funny play on words and sometime just nonsense but it worked really well. It used to play on some networks in the states but I hadn’t seen it in a while. For it to come bouncing into the room blew my mind.....i started spinning out but then i decided to write this and for some reason i came back to center.

I have come to realize something and I believe it came from the Lord. Nancy and I had been living 2 lives. One in Nashville, one in Cape Town. Each with its own personality and circumstances, its own set of promises and friends. I believe that’s why this trip has been unusually difficult. Again, I didn’t see it coming. (I think I must be the most undiscerning human being on the planet.) So....the truth is that not only must I walk out the grief attached to everything in Nashville, I must also walk out the Cape Town path. I thought that on the last trip with the Revive team in Jan 2011 I had crossed most of the mountain but I was with people all the time. This time I had to go through it alone. People are living their lives here...busy just like when I am home so there were several days where I was pretty much by myself and that left a lot of time for thinking, mourning, laughing, praying, reading, and feeling very alone and isolated.

But these things are necessary and what I have to endure. It’s what God has ordered for me for whatever reason.....and I still argue with Him about it but I always know in my heart that I must trust Him. It’s a fight...everyday.....it’s awful right now but I never give up hope that someday it will be tolerable and that I will come to a place of resolve and peace with the rest of my life. May it be so Lord....may it be so. 

Every Step I Take.....

I know...it’s a bit of a rip off. But it says everything about this trip, this realm of time that I am trying to exist in. It’s a really strange sensation to be here with these people that I love so much and have this gaping cavity where Nancy’s presence used to be. They have accepted me, the one now, as family...even when I’m spinning out...it doesn’t phase them. Complete grace and love. From the kids too....Kyle, Tenille, Mikhail, all have been so amazing..they continually bust me, make fun of me, love me....it’s pretty wonderful and surreal.

So...it has been all over the map...I mean my emotions, my state of being. I had a day that I thought I wouldn’t survive...followed by a day of fun and friends. I saw my good friend Alvin Hendricks in Joburg. Rolf, Alvin, and I had dinner and talked and laughed until 2 am. I went to a little town called Nespruit where I met with the YFC team Buyela (a dance and drama team) and sat with them and composed beats and music for them to dance to...priceless. I will be doing some more work for them before I leave. Some of the most precious people you would ever meet. The next day Rolf and I went to Kruger National Park and saw giraffes, hippos, croc’s, and got right up in an elephants face as he was eating!!! Nothing like seeing them in the wild.....nothing like it!! 

And even in the middle of that great time...a thick suffocating blanket of sadness seems to find a way to sneak in and throw itself over me. I fight it each time and usually I can throw it off into the corner where it will lay until the next confrontation. But on somedays I’m done and I’m ready to check out.... I’m convinced it’s spiritual...or more exact..a spirit that plagues me. To some of you that may sound goofy...however what does scripture say?...”we wrestle not...” Right? I don’t claim to know or get it but these attacks that come at me seem to be vicious and personal, more than just grieving because I know Nancy is absolutely OK!! For some reason I think a target has been drawn on my back and those fiery darts just keep coming....just as intense if not more so than the night Nancy passed through to the other side. I think since I have recognized this I will find a way to get out from under it. 

Nancy....I miss her....she should be here.... but she’s not and I can’t change that. Loneliness will be a part my life from here on out...but maybe it’s because God wants me to be all His. Maybe He wants my undivided attention. I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. If you don’t know the writing bear with me....one of the ghosts’ is a mother who has lost a son and is telling one of the Solid people about how much she loved him and that it was not fair or right that he was taken away. That there was no love equal to how she loved her son....compared to other mothers. Well....i felt like God was poking me in the heart, to say “listen carefully son...this is for you if you will accept it”. The Solid Person of Light basically told her that she would never understand true love unless her love for God came first...before her love for her son. It is more complex than that in the story but it is close to the point.

Nancy and I had a marriage and relationship unlike anyone I know.....and to spend the rest of my life looking at older couples and then looking up into the Heavens and saying “God...why couldn’t Nancy and I have had that?” What is so damn wrong about us being able to have that wonderful experience of celebrating let’s say 50 years of marriage? What an honor and what a testimony!! Every time this happens I must....reboot...I cannot let my life sink into endless unanswerable questions. They will be answered......but not here.....I have to come to grips with that and be at peace with it. So...is this all about my relationship with God and how weak it has been? I think in part it is. And the journey to SA has been one of the steps....one of the many. I know I have a long way to go. And I hope to be a story about victory...overcoming the odds. Honestly, I am still OK with God taking me..I think about it every day actually.....anytime He wants, but if there is another chapter that needs to written then so be it. I have become acquainted with the sufferings of Christ. I know only a small portion of what Jesus went through, but I do know in part. And the steps I hope will be ordered by God, that He will direct me and give me a sense of where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to do.

When I went back to Capetown, Kyle, Mikhail and I went to a Rugby game to see the Stormers!! OK...you know I love the NFL but I’m just saying...these rugby guys are as tough as I have ever seen. I mean really...they play football (kind of) with no pads or helmets!! WHAT?? It was crazy and a ton of fun! I could definitely become a Rugby fan....and Cricket too!! hahaha What a strange interesting game that we Americans have no clue about....

Back on the farm now watching Rolf and Lizzie scurry around taking care of things. Picked olives one morning...and just been hanging out with Mikhail and Tenille..love little Mik and of course my beautiful Sweet T.... Going back to Capetown on Sunday and hang out with Kyle (always have fun with Kyle!) and will get to see some of my SA family that I haven’t seen yet. Only 10 days before I leave...already feeling a bit teary about that......

Love to all of you....

michael d.

Blogging about Zebra poop..does it get any better than that?

I’m not crazy about the actual sound of the word...”blogging”. Sounds like something that happens to your colon when you don’t eat enough roughage.

Never really understood the blogging thing but I guess it’s basically a digital diary that you throw out there into the “internets” and whoever wants to read your insane ramblings can if they so choose to. So I will insanely ramble on about this day....

How many Americans can say they shoveled Zebra poop! I’ll wager not many. This is how my morning went. I asked Lizzie if there was something I could do to help around the place. She said maybe I could help straighten out the little garden outside their backdoor. “It’s got Zebra poop in it” she said, like I would scream with the delight of a 4 year old boy being told he was going to go get some ice cream. “Really?” Kinda cool and different right? I took a look and it was overrun with weeds and there were a couple of thorn bushes I needed to dig out.....and....I saw the poop but was not dismayed by the piles of round and quite large excrement balls. They seemed to be in nice organized layers so I thought..no prob.

Weird already is the fact it is their fall season but today is more like a summer day...hot and breezy and actually quite beautiful. So I put on some shorts and long sleeve shirt...grab my Nano for some tuneage and find some shovels, rakes, and bags. Here we go..gonna help out my African friends with a little gardening. First thing I notice on closer inspection...hey wait..there is a lot more poop out here than I thought. In fact the closer I look I see the poop is so intermingled with all the plants, bushes, and grass that a rake....ain’t gonna do it! I suddenly see my plight..I am going to have to pull some of this stuff out by hand. Because you see... it looks like what they did was come into the garden to feed, then when it was time to unload, it seemed as though they turned around...butt facing into the epicenter if you will of said garden and began to machine gun their poop balls at an amazing and alarming rate and quantity might I add into the smallest of crevices and places so small that would seem impossible for poop to be...and yet there it existed.

So I spent the next 2 1/2 hours bagging the culprits because in Africa nothing is wasted and the bagged poop would be used elsewhere...even though some of it looked older than Africa!

The rest of the day I tried to write some music but even though this place is remote it certainly is not quiet! I set up my port-o-studio on the table on the front porch feeling good about coming up with some beats. Kinda hard to feel that street thing when you got....goats bleating, pigs grunting (and smelling), weird birds making all kinds of noises, Zebras running around wanting to eat, dogs running around wanting to play, the office phone ringing and ringing, Lizzie’s Blackberry making so many noises I don’t know what they mean, the workers coming in and out having LOUD conversations with Lizzie and so on and so on...I mean it’s a place of business and “binezz” is going on y’all! No fault of theirs...but not an environment for writing music. I should record the goat bleating...it is so eerily human sounding..it’s unnerving!

So anyway...that’s my Facebook Tweeter version of “having a blackberry croisant with a Latte” post :) Hope this brought a smile....more later....Love all of you in the extreme....

"I had a farm in Africa...."

Famous first words of the amazing movie Out Of Africa with Merrill Streep and Robert Redford. And the farm here just northeast of Cape Town looks straight out of that movie. I will post some pics so hopefully you can get a bit of a feel for it.

So..... it’s Tuesday night...out on the farm. I’m sitting on this huge porch that looks at the mountains and the moon doesn’t look real as it peacefully floats up into the black star saturated sky. I’ve been here since friday night. The flight was long and never ending but I did get to witness to a kid sitting next to me. He had been for the most part of my final flight.......only 11 hours long :/......talking to a gentleman about God, Buddism, Spirtual Awareness....trees :) so I didn’t say anything until that last few minutes because I wanted to leave without a big discussion. I told him I appreciated his pursuit for truth but it was a cerebral pursuit, an unending intellectual hike that would never reveal the answers he was looking for.....he would not find peace that way because God is a personal relationship God...one on one..talk to him like a friend God. It seemed to resonate with this really cool kid and so i hope he will get a revelation of how much God loves him....his name was Adam by the way.......

I was whisked away Sat. morning to this place...this wonderful beautiful place called Amathusi. It’s a nature reserve and Rolf and Lizzie are now managing it. Animals all over the place...not as many as some other other place I have been but they 4 Zebras that hang around everyday...got to feed them...yep I did!! There are plans to start bringing in kids for training and mentoring from all around the nation. It’s a bit of a long range plan and it is folding out very slowly. But let me tell you...it’s going to be amazing once it’s in place. Rolf has such passion for young people and helping them reach their potential. Many of the kids here in his country have no hope or prospect of doing anything with their lives. You can’t really understand this way of life as an American until you visit a country like this. There are many countries around the world that share that tragic fate and it just so happens that God gave me a spark about this one. I don’t get God on ow He does much of what He does, especially in the last couple of years, but I just go along with it and try to find where I fit.

So...a couple of things..#1 I picked up the wrong suitcase and didn’t get mine back until to day. That suitcase had all my chargers so everything electronically was dead by Sunday and #2 the internet was down until Monday night so trying let people know I was here and ok was trying to say the least. All is well now and so begins this journey. I will spend some time with the YFC team next week and then will be writing some music for them. This trip will consist of some work and connecting but also doing some spiritual inventory.

I’m a mess.....still.....and I’m hoping to get a couple of more pieces to the puzzle. And I am continuously puzzled about how this has all come to be and how.... Oh God is this better......I have been missing Nancy as much as ever because I think the remoteness and quietness of this place magnifies any kind of emotional discontent I have. So the nights are long....very long. But I am hoping beyond hope that there is a different day coming.

Thanks to all of you for the hopes, prayers, and resources you have so freely given me. I know you miss her too,.... but I can tell you do have a sense of my grief...how deep and wide it is. And how will I survive this......we’ll see.........

"Leaving....on a jet plane..don't know when I'll be back again"...well, God willing I do!

Have tried like mad to get everything done...but didn't quite make it..oh well...sorry Kiko and Clemmy. Those are my beautiful new friends who have the unenviable task of taking of my dogs and my house which both are out of control.....for a month!! God help them!!

Anyways..AGAIN thank you for all the support and prayers. Into the unknown...but that's where I have been living for almost 2 years now...that's a strange reality....

I will keep you posted on what is happening, maybe some pictures and videos..who knows. If you would like to follow by email there is an app on the blog for you sign up to....

Blessings and I'll be talking at you later...much love to all of you!!

1 week!!!

Well..it's a week away now... AAUUUGGHH!!! I have been blessed with a ton of work but it is starting to "freak me out man"! I'm going as fast as I can without compromising and the projects I am working are so cool, awesome, and spiritual..it's quite amazing what I get to be involved with!! Anyways...I have to get it together! So pray for me that Mon, Tues, and Wed will be exceptionally productive days as I will tackle so many issues..things that Nancy and I shared doing...and now it's a one man show...and this man falls way beneath the brilliant qualities of one Nancy Demus...i fall massively short, however with your pray i will do the best i can....and that's all I can do right?

AND THANK YOU to all who have left messages and donations! Once again I am amazed at the Body of Christ moving together...it is quite awesome. I will still need prayer while there and will keep you informed of any other thoughts that need to be "bathed". As Rolf and I walk and talk through the future and what it looks like...more to come...blessings!