Sometimes it seems like you can do the same work from a distance. We’ve all been trying it. It appears to be working. We are getting things done and work is moving forward, in all sorts of ways. This is wonderful and a new normal for us all.

Yet, when you are able to be back doing the work in person again, things are different. For me, I am able to see, appreciate, and find missing parts and pieces that I didn’t realize were even missing from a distance.

This is a little bit what it was like when I went to church in person for the first time after the lockdown. Even though we were spread out and wearing masks, I hadn’t realized what a difference being together made, singing and listening, in the same space.

It is also a bit of what I’ve been experiencing as we are returning to Yaoundé and our work, in person. The reality of the various crisis situations around the country is much harder and more bleak than what I could hear or see from a distance. There are pieces of my life that are being revived, and I hadn’t even realized they had been dormant. I am able to see and appreciate things up close that I wasn’t able to from a distance.

From a distance, sometimes what seems to be is only part of the picture in reality.