child at heart

For the few of those who don’t know, I got a new tattoo last Wednesday with dad when he was home for a visit. I had been thinking about getting this done for a while but just never really acted on it. Then last week on a fast whim I decided to get it done. Here it is:

Mwendwa is my african name given to me from my second mom, Makena in Kenya. The significance of it to me is a story in and of itself. The tattoo was taken from my journal, so that is exactly how Makena wrote it when she named me. Her own handwriting and all.

The first year I went to Kenya, the group “mother” if you will – former Kenyan missionary – Marinda told us that some years people would get named from the people we interacted with. I was hoping that would happen for us. On our last few days there we went to visit Makena and James at their home and she said she would like to name us based on who she saw we were while we were in Kenya. I was able and blessed to be able to spend more time with Makena than some of the other girls because my sweet friend Emily and I spent our “home study” days with her.

Anyway, she became a mother to me. She named me Mwendwa, which means “One who is very loved”. What struck me so odd is that of all the personality traits she saw in me, and all the names she could have picked based on those traits – why did she pick that particular one? Why it was so odd to me was that since the day I turned 16 and was given my own personalized license plate, it had read IAMLOVD. Simple enough to understand. But Makena, who didn’t know before I stepped into the country in the summer of 2008 had never known a single thing about my life. About me. About my personality. About my background. About my spiritual walk. Getting the picture? She didn’t know me from the cow in her front yard. Yet she picked that particular name based on how she saw my interactions with the people of my group, and the children we spent time with, and with her, and just what she saw in general. And to this day it kind of gives me chills when I think that she had no way of knowing what my plate said, yet she picked something so personal and so RELEVANT to me.

I’ve never forgotten that moment. How we both cried when we hugged for the last time. And how happy we were the next year when we were able to see each other again. That moment was enough to justify to me getting this name tattooed on my left wrist for the rest of my life.

The neat thing about getting this ink done, which took all of 10 minutes including the preparation and cleaning/bandaging afterward, was talking to Rhett about what this meant to me. He seemed to be a very obvious unbeliever (based on his artwork in his room and the things he said), but was very floored? intrigued? curious? about Makena and how she picked that name when I told him the same story I just wrote out. And that is the whole goal to me in getting ink done. I can use it as a conversation starter. Because telling him that story led to him asking why I went, and my telling just a little about missionary work that I’m so intertwined in my life with.

So, for all you who didn’t know what my new middle name on FB meant, and the back story to where it came from – now you do.