If you think that Lincoln, Nebraska is in the middle of nowhere — BEEP– you are incorrect. Lincoln is the middle of everywhere. We had originally hoped to meet and interview Mary Pipher, author of a book titled “The Middle of Everywhere” which describes her experiences with refugees in Lincoln. They have come from everywhere, and we could tell as we drove through the city –there were restaurants of all sorts, and kids let of of school reflected a diverse body. Mary was in Colorado, but we got to meet Pat Fuenning who happens to be Rhonda Brubacher’s college roommate, and the “less famous Mary Pipher”. Pat has established relationships with refugees in the area, having spent a semester in Argentina on a high school exchange program which led her to understand some of the challenges and difficulties of being in a foreign place. We were privileged to meet with her friends Mama Grace, her son Benjamin and friend Justin, from Sudan. Grace’s husband was in leadership in Sudan, but left the country, only to return. Pat expressed concerned for his life, but clearly, Grace and her family are resilient in all the challenges present to them.
We also had the opportunity to tour around the very ornate capitol building of Nebraska (unique in that it is the only capital in the US to have a unicameral legislature/one house) and spent the night with Deb Berke’s (Prof of HDFS) aunt. She too had many stories to share about her life. She rents her basement to researchers/grad students, and so we met Roberto, a physician from Colombia on Fullbright studying statistics. We appreciated his insight about the system of education, specifically pertaining to the field of medicine in Colombia. As we left today, Roberto said it was nice to meet us and that we were “interesting girls”. I continue to be fascinated by the fact that people seemed to be “impressed” by us and what we are doing on the road. There is much to process about the impact of the people with whom we have come in contact with, but I did not think we would have such a positive impact on them. Everyone we have met and spoken with have shared their lives with us, and we are so thankful, that it is odd to think that they are thanking us.