Misfit

I am about to cross from one reality to the other in a matter of few hours. Flying tonight from Dar es Salaam to Warsaw via Zurich. These realities - Tanzania (and Africa at large) and Poland (and Europe at large) - has merged in me throughout the past twenty years of my life and work as a Polish missionary in Tanzania and - I believe - made me someone else, living in between these two realities, or maybe, someone incorporating in oneself both realities. I feel at home in Tanzania. I feel at home in Poland. Yet I do not belong fully anymore to Poland. And I will never belong fully to Tanzania, no matter how hard I try...

This particular state, condition of being a missionary is an experience of the Cross. Hanging in between heaven and earth. Connected through the Cross with the dust of the earth and reaching sky with outstretched hands fixed to the Cross by nails of faithfulness to one's vocation and destiny...

After years of missionary life and service I no longer belong fully to Poland, taken out of the Polish reality and sent to serve others in Tanzania. Africa has stolen my heart and soul and mind and body. This is very expensive kind of relationship, enchantment and love...It takes its toll on me in many aspects. You have to experience it, falling in love in Africa, living here for a period of time, enough to infect you with incurable virus of love for Africa and its people... Coming back to Poland for holidays, be it long or short, you feel you no longer belong to Europe, to Poland, to First World reality... You are different... You struggle to get grip of myriads of little things, so important to Poles, Europeans, and so irrelevant for you, coming from struggle to survive in Africa... Ask missionaries or volunteers coming back from Africa, how they feel, what they go through... My relatives and friends keep asking me - 'when will you come back to Poland? Enough of it!' And I just don't understand them...or maybe better, they don't understand...

And yet, from time to time, Africa will remind you cruelly that you do not belong fully to here either... When people will keep reminding you that you are foreigner, that you are not one of them... It is painful, especially when you have forgotten already that you are stranger, that your color of skin is different, that your culture you grew up in is different...You forgot, you felt in union with people you serve, you forgot your color, you forgot all this... But you will be reminded...and brought back to to earth landing hard on reality...

But, even so, you will feel stronger ties with Africa and its people than with your roots and homeland... Of course, when time comes to go back where you came from, eventually you will sink in and learn to live again in European, Polish reality...this will be a long learning curve, some will be cured completely of this love and enchantment in Africa, but most will have this wound in their hearts, this longing, this love and desire to come back... I know so many missionaries and volunteers who are incurable... They are ready to go back to where they belong more...

This experience of the Cross, this state of belonging 'in-between' is called misfit. Misfit is one who is unable to adjust to one's environment or circumstances or is considered to be disturbingly different from others. This is a dictionary definition. But I would say misfit in our missionary reality is a person who longer belongs fully to one's original, home environment and will never belong fully to one's present environment ...

I still experience this 'misfitness' and whenever I go home (Kraków) I miss home (Kiabakari) this feeling becomes more acute... And I am sure this is what I am about to experience again today and tomorrow, crossing from one home to the other...

When, back in years, I experienced this condition, I tried to find explanation and know if it is me only or others experience the same. Then I came across a valuable book: "The Misfit: Haunting the Human-Unveiling the Divine" by Father Larry Lewis, Maryknoll Missioner in China. This book revealed to me the depths of this problem and helped me to strike a proper balance. Being proud of who I am and where I grew up and came from and at the same time preserving great respect for the place, people I serve and live among and their customs and traditions. I am who I am and you are who you are. I don't try to make you in my image to become friends, and you don't  make me in your image to understand me and accept me as your friend and equal. I don't struggle desperately to become African in every aspect to be accepted, because I will never be an  African. And at the same time I do not struggle in vain to turn you into an European or Pole!

The infusion of Africa in me is done gradually, automatically, and I accept it and like it... The African in me is taking place that is vacated by European or Polish things that are no longer important to me or completely irrelevant to human person's growth and maturity. I learn more in Africa, being reminded of human values we somehow lost in Europe in our hasty quest for perfect economy and perfect comfortable life, for this and that, forgetting who we really are and what is the true goal of our life... I learn more that I am able to give. It is me who is enriched more than people I serve...

And for this I am so much grateful to God for giving me this experience of the Cross, misfitness - a gateway to a world I would never dream of being in one place only...

Tomorrow, inshallah, first post from Poland. Please, say a prayer for a safe flight! Thank you!