I’ve had many updates started and saved. Some have been found and discarded and others lost, maybe to be found by accident one day in the future. I’m hoping to actually complete this brief update/summary of the last two and half years and then move on to more current updates. I think I’ve said in the past that the blog acts as much as a journal, even therapy, for me as it does a way to let friends and family know what’s going on. I think the updates over the past couple years that are saved (somewhere), but that I never used, are part of the journaling/self-therapy aspect more than they were intended for updates, which is probably why I never posted them – being aware at some level.

I’m also forever behind in communication, which since my last update (or longer) has focused mostly on family (and even that has been mostly limited to my dad, sisters and brother) - - and I’m just hoping and trusting that everyone I’ve fallen behind with will just understand and allow ourselves to move on. Usually, that’s how it works, anyway - - good friends and loved ones always seem to be able to just pick up as though no time has passed.

With many of the BIG things that have gone on over the last couple of years, it has taken me time to feel the right inspiration and to whittle down what I want to share, without getting side-tracked into using the blog too much for in-depth therapeutical purposes, and not primarily as an update. I just now glanced at my last blog post - - it was the road trip to visit family and friends across the US, with a lot of good camping along the way. After that, I returned to Wisconsin to finish my sabbatical by having the final month of it with my parents.

As requested by the “superiors”, about a month prior to the sabbatical’s completion, I informed the US SMA that I still felt very connected to SMA, felt that SMA is like my family, and that I still strongly valued and shared their approach of being close to the people we work with – the “most abandoned of Africa and African descent” – and I requested a renewal of my contract. I also knew that the new leadership team in Ghana was requesting for me and another guy (Joe, the one who took over some of my work on the camp when I left and whose contract was coming to an end) to come back to work with people with disabilities and in other areas in Ghana – so, I was hopeful about a future of continuing with SMA in Africa.

There was new leadership in the US SMA at that time, and they informed me that it was good to know what I was thinking. They were looking at the future of the program for the lay people in the US SMA, and I should wait a bit until they update that and make decisions related to the overall program, then they will respond to my request to continue with them. That was early October 2020….and I still haven’t heard back, but, obviously, the response has been clear all the same.

 

                                   one of many winter hikes with dad

So, after the first couple of weeks of silence and then being told I no longer had health coverage, I found a list I had previously begun of organizations I would like to work for, and edited and expanded upon it and started looking into what kind of openings those organizations had available at that time. The world was still kind of deep in COVID, so that complicated things a little – but the dreams and fantasies of new doors opening were there.

Early December that same year (2020), the French SMA asked if I’d be interested in coming to France to be a part of them and to work with migrants. In fact, it is something that I was very open to doing. As mentioned, SMA is family (even if the US SMA had decided to drop us from their part of the family), and over the years, it has become an extended, worldwide family to me. And the work with migrants. . . that goes without saying, in my opinion. People on the move in that way aren’t looking to invade, attack, rape, kill, etc. - - they are looking for safety and/or opportunities for themselves and their families that they can’t find in their home countries due to many factors beyond their control. They are hopeful that eventually they will be able help their loved ones back home. They have abandoned all they know, all their supports, and risked their lives in hopes of opportunities and safety. So, I told France yes, but that I would be coming independently . . . not as part of the US SMA. . .

. . . and then my mom had a stroke and was in-between hospitals, rehab, sub-acute care, and finally hospice . . . and then she left us to rest peacefully following years of chronic pain and her final few months that consisted of an even bigger battle following her stroke.

                  view from my mom's hospice window during her final days

I stayed with my dad for a while after that, working with him to organize and simplify his life and his future. He and I did a shorter version of the road trip I had done the previous year – again visiting friends and family and doing some camping. 

 

 

Great Sand Dunes National Park, one of Dad's dreams...

 

 Sand hill cranes...just down the road from Dad's new home

 

 

 the Ice Age Trail that goes through the forest behind dad's new place, with visiting niece and nephew

SMA France was very understanding and gave me the necessary time, and finally, November 2021, I left for Chaponost, France, just outside of Lyon. 

Since then, there have been basically three parts to my life here in France with SMA. One is being a part of the life and the project (Les Cartieres) at the place where I live; another is welcoming and taking care of the young migrants passing through and staying for a few days at Les Cartieres; and the third part is working with migrants in the city, hoping and praying that our efforts will help them to legally become a part of the system so that they can, to some extent, achieve their dreams. These last two parts are actually what inspire and fulfill me the most these days – the people and their stories fill my heart, my time, my thoughts; they leave me deeply moved, in hope and in tears.

                   one of the two Chaponost snow falls the winter of 2021-2022
 

And I will try to write more about these three things soon…