On leaving

As we prepare to head back to America for a season, I have been thinking about how we are leaving. I can think of two times since living here that I wanted to go home. I wanted to pack it all up, ignore/forget the call that brought us here and just go home. To a place where I am known, loved, understood. A place of support and encouragement and bathrooms that are stocked with toilet paper and people who greet you with a smile rather than a grimace. The first was at the end of our first year here. If my husband wasn’t so faithful and wise (and if I weren’t stubborn and prone to not a quitting things), we could have left. The people we loved and trusted most had hurt us deeply, everything was exponentially harder than it should have been, and we were beaten down. We learned more about humility than I thought possible. Day after day we were humbled in new and painful ways. Language learning reduced us to a childlike state with people here. Government visits were torturous. People were not welcoming. I recently was speaking to a friend here about it-she’s a psychologist who is also a transplant to our adopted city. She helped me understand culturally that all of the things Americans value about hospitality (particularly good southern girls like myself) are not valued here. You don’t show up at a neighbors house with fresh baked bread to share or flowers to welcome someone to the neighborhood. You are polite. You keep to yourself. You care for your family. After speaking with her (and wishing I had known her four years ago when we arrived), I thought about that. And it’s so true. God has blessed us with some precious friends-friends we will carry with us wherever life takes all of us next.