Today Waco was covered by a haze that had traveled more than 6,000 miles from Africa. Scientists can explain exactly how it happened. Strong winds lifted dust from the Sahara, carried it across the Atlantic, crossed the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually drifted into Texas.

For most people, it was simply an unusually hazy day. For me, it felt much more personal.

I left South Africa thirty-seven years ago. Since then, life has taken me to Illinois, California, Indiana, Oklahoma, and now Texas. Each place became another chapter of my story. California is where I became a father when Levi joined our family. Every move changed me, but none erased where I began.

When people ask if I miss South Africa, my mind often goes to the opening words of that old song: “I miss the rains down in Africa.” It’s more than nostalgia for the weather. It’s the smell of the earth after a storm, the sound of rain on a tin roof, the landscapes of my childhood, and the people who helped shape the person I would become.

As the song continues, “It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.” I’ve always thought those words captured something deeper than romance. There are places that become part of us. No matter how far we travel or how many years pass, they never completely let us go.

Today’s dust didn’t come from South Africa. It came from the Sahara, thousands of miles away on the other side of the continent. Yet it didn’t matter. For a few hours, the sky above Texas carried a little piece of Africa, and I couldn’t help but smile.

It reminded me that home has a way of finding us.

Sometimes it comes through an old photograph or a familiar melody. Sometimes it’s a childhood meal whose aroma instantly transports you across decades. Sometimes it’s hearing an accent that sounds like your own. And every now and then, after thirty-seven years and six thousand miles, it arrives on the wind.

Maybe that’s the real lesson.

We spend much of our lives believing we are leaving places behind. We leave countries, neighborhoods, schools, and seasons of life. Yet the places that truly shape us never really disappear. They become part of us, quietly influencing how we see the world, how we love, and who we become.

Looking out at the hazy Texas sky today, I realized I wasn’t simply watching dust drift overhead. For a brief moment, it felt as though the continent that gave me my first home had reached across an ocean to remind me that some connections never fade.

Perhaps that’s what home really is. It isn’t just the place where your story began. It’s every place that has shaped your story, always finding quiet ways to remind you that it still belongs to you.