China

October 20, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal {31 Days of Re-Entry}

We like to say life is “seasonal,” but sometimes I wonder if this is an accurate description. Much of the world has four seasons, though some places have only one or two, but I think we can all agree that these seasons repeat. In life, our seasons will never repeat themselves. We have one chance at the season we are in before the next one begins, never to be repeated again.

Life is more like a book with chapters, complete with plot twists and complex characters, though it may have repeating themes and recurring symbols.

I am currently in a chapter I’d title “The Narrowing.” When we first got married, my husband and I coined this term because we suddenly had less than half the amount of time we used to have for personal pursuits and other relationships.  We felt squeezed. And then we had kids. Now we wonder who we are and if we’ll ever see our old selves again. Life in this chapter can feel like an open pasture that is suddenly fenced. Beautiful and green at times, but limited.

When I returned from China, I had every intention of “using my Chinese” and staying in close contact with Chinese friends, but as I practically crash landed while hitting the pavement running on re-entry, those desires and expectations just became places of immense guilt and regret.

I have already written about feeling like I have latent gifts, but I do wonder sometimes if China was just a stand-alone chapter. Was it like the older TV shows that wrapped up neatly in every episode, or was it a show with a long story arc, spanning multiple episodes?  Will I see the character of China again (or perhaps just eavesdrop on her doppleganger in America?)?

I had never lived in the mountains until six months ago, though it was always my dream. In Florida where I grew up, and Chicago where I lived as an adult, I would sometimes pretend the clouds on the low horizon were mountains in the distance. Now I am blessed to see mountains as I leave the grocery store. As novice mountain dwellers, we made the mistake of thinking we needed to live as close to the mountains as possible. I love knowing they’re there, but am overwhelmed with awe when we drive several miles away and look back at the majestic horizon.

I look forward to the day when I am not so close to the mountains in my story.  One day I will have perspective. One day I will flip back through the story of my life and muse over the recurring themes and characters and perhaps be able to answer some of the “why’s and what?!’s” that I have scribbled in the margins.

When I decided to leave China, I had a conversation with a leader in our organization, Amy Young. I apologetically told her about my decision to return to America and that I was most likely going to get married.  Expecting to hear disappointment in her response, she surprised me with, “Life is long.” God willing, life is long. I will have other chances to go. “In sha allah,” as my Saudi Arabian friend says, “As God wills.”

My husband and I went back to China after I had been in the states for a year to lead a summer trip for college students to teach English. On the trip, we met an American couple in their 70’s that was leading a separate trip for adults. They had been travelling to China every summer for 20 years. I was relieved to discover that they hadn’t even begun serving the Lord overseas until they were in their 50’s. It gave me hope that China might be a recurring character in my story.

As I begin to advance into the “not as young” group of life-livers, I am grateful for stories of goers who go much later in life.  Young people have such a hard time imagining themselves past age 30 or 40, so it can be shocking when you realize that there can be so many more chapters yet to be written.

The following quote is my life motto of sorts. It gets recopied into my journals each time I get a new one and it helps me to center my prayers as I approach Jesus. It reminds me to live in my chapter and trust that God will begin the next one in His perfect timing. I hope it can lead you to the throne today as well:

“To follow the Lord to the cross means this:

Every day you must surrender yourself–body and soul–and obediently do the work of your Father.
Wherever He leads you and whatever it costs you.

I am speaking of the surrender to God of your whole life, each day, from now on.

And each day God will lay out the work you must do.

That is His part.
Your part is to forsake the life you would choose for yourself and follow him to do what He shows you to do.”

(Bernard of Clairvaux, Your Angels Guard My Steps, p. 16)

If you are over the age of 50 and reading this, what have you been able to accomplish or experience in your 50’s and beyond that you never would have imaged while you were younger? If you are in the “younger” camp, which themes and characters do you hope you will see again in a later chapter?

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This post is day 20 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: Grieving
Day 3: No One Is Special
Day 4: Wasted Gifts
Day 5: I Never Expected…
Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass
Day 7: Did I mishear God?
Day 8: When You Feel Like Shutting Down
Day 9: Caring for your Dorothy
Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed
Day 11: 12 Race Day Lessons for Serving Overseas
Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie
Day 13: Longing for Home
Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, Different Work Space
Day 15: Book Review: The Art of Coming Home
Day 16: The Story of My “Call”
Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”?
Day 18: And Then I Fell in Love
Day 19: Is God Calling You Overseas?
Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal
Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind
Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless
Day 23: When the Nations Come to You
Day 24: The Call to Displacement
Day 25: Scripture Anchors for Re-Entry
Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile
Day 27: Resources for Re-entry
Day 28: A Time for Everything: A Prayer of Leaving
Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry
Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry
Day 31: A Blessing
(Day 32: Writing is Narcissistic (And Four Other Reasons Not to Write)–a reflection on this Write 31 Days experience)

Find many other great 31 day blogs here!

Photo: www.canva.com

Linking up with Velvet Ashes

October 18, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 18: And Then I Fell In Love {31 Days of Re-Entry}

“In Your way, in Your time, if it’s Your will.”

This was always my prayer when I talked to God about my desire for marriage. This is the story of how He chose to answer that prayer.

“In Your way”
You never quite know how (or if) your love story is going to go. As it turns out, mine shocked me.

I returned to the states for two months in the middle of my fifth year of serving in China. I was about to finish my second year of full-time language school. While home in Florida with my parents, I traveled to Chicago for two weeks to visit friends, which included a weekend trip at the beginning with about 10 friends in Michigan. We had done those kind of get-togethers over the years and though there was a core group, there were usually a few different people each time.

I ended up riding to Michigan with a friend, her fiancé, and another guy, Adam Verner, a voice talent and audio book narrator. We had actually met many years before when he visited our small group, but for various reasons he hadn’t been able to get involved at church until after I had already gone to China. We talked the entire three hours to Michigan and hung out all weekend. Since I had always planned on marrying a missionary, my guard was completely down and I just kept telling myself to relax and enjoy him. It wasn’t until the drive back that I thought to myself Oh crap. I really like this guy. And I live in CHINA. (As he tells it, it was on the way there that he thought the same thing).

Being self-employed, he had time to spend time with me during the next two weeks in Chicago. We talked a ton, but for once I didn’t let myself go too deep too quickly. One of my best friends knew Adam well and could vouch for him and assured me that he was a quality guy. “Don’t analyze and don’t fantasize” was my motto for those two weeks and I would blast the radio with dance music each time I got in the car to try and prevent myself from doing just that.

But I was falling in love.

After the fact, we both described the feelings as being caught up by a current where it would have been impossible to swim backward. All we could do was allow ourselves to be swept along in the flow. I finally understood why people called it “falling” in love, because it was a terrifying and wonderful free fall into the unknown.

After hanging out several times, he invited me over for dinner at his condo. Walking in, I remember thinking There’s no way all my stuff will fit in here. After dinner, I threw him off by sitting across the room from him instead of next to him on the couch. He thought for sure I wasn’t interested, but I later told him that it was because I didn’t want to be distracted by how attracted I was to him.

We spent more time together the next week and he asked me out for Valentine’s Day. It was then that he told me that he wanted to “intentionally pursue me”–even if that meant him coming to China–and had started researching ways to do a long distance relationship well. I was leaving the next day to fly back to Florida for a few weeks before heading to China.

“You know you ARE going to be in the states a little longer,” he said.

“And you want to come visit me in Florida?” I said. When he smiled and nodded, my entire body flooded with heat and I began sweating. I told him that I hadn’t even told my family yet (my mom had a history of getting too excited too quickly anytime I talked about a guy, so I thought it would be best to keep this a secret for a little while).

So I flew home the next day and told my mom that not only was I dating someone, but that he was coming next week. I had dated so little that she actually thought I was lying. No one would believe me! But after convincing the family I was telling the truth, Adam showed up in Florida to meet my entire family–and even jumped in the family picture.

I flew back to China a few days later and we began our long distance relationship which consisted of 5 hour Skype conversations every other day and scanning hand-written letters to email for the next few months (the mail was too slow!). That was in early March. Mid-March he told me he loved me and during his week-long visit to China in May, we discussed marriage. I flew back to America July 15 and we were engaged 3 days after that. We got married January 15, just a few weeks shy of the Michigan weekend a year before.

“In Your Time”
I’ve always thought it was strange when people said they “got married late,” as if God does anything “late.” But that said, it certainly started feeling like I had missed my opportunity for marriage when my friends not only passed me, but began lapping me as they had one child after another.

I always loved the verses throughout the Song of Solomon that talked about not awakening love until it so desired and tried to trust that God knew what He was doing when I still found myself single on my 30th birthday (why is that always our “deadline” for marriage?). Being 29 was a much harder year for me than 30 for that reason–because I was still single, with no prospects of marriage (and, did I mention I was living in the middle of nowhere China?).

But God brought Adam and I together when His time was right. We often speculate on whether we would have ended up together earlier if I had been in the states, but ironically it was the fact that I was living in China that was intriguing to him. That, and I had finally accepted God’s will for my life–even if that meant being single. (I had decided to move forward with Plan B, which was becoming the most educated single person I could and getting my PhD!).

“If It’s Your Will”
How did I know that it was God’s will for me to leave China and marry Adam?

I am certainly not an expert in discerning God’s will, but I will say that He had to do a work in my heart before I even met Adam to get me to a place of being willing to marry someone who didn’t fit a very specific profile. Over the years of singleness, my long list of qualifications eventually boiled down to just three:

1. Loves God
2. Loves me
3. Loves others

Of course I had ideas of how I hoped these three would play out, but ultimately I had to lay my hopes and expectations down at His altar and trust that He would choose someone for me.

I have had many friends over the years who have really wrestled with whether or not someone was right for them. That was not the case with me. I think God knew that in order for me to leave China and my plans, the way would have to be undeniably clear.

Though I have had no doubt that marriage was God’s will for me, I will say that I have struggled with what other people think about my choice, which I hashed out in a separate post called “When Marriage Is Viewed as Selling Out.”

But I remember discussing my feelings with my married teammate and she assured me that leaving China to get married was completely valid and right. This was also the friend who had had a dream that I told her I was dating a guy named Adam the week before I actually flew back to China!

I am blessed to be married to a kind, generous, hard-working, talented, intelligent, gentle and thoughtful man who:
1. Loves God
2. Loves me
3. Loves others

He has supported me so well through all of the transitions of the past five years. And while he may not feel “called to missions,” he is submitted to God and wants to live in obedience to Christ no matter where we live–even if that means going back to China.

~~~~~~

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This post is day 18 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

October 16, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 16: The Story of My “Call” {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Today is a “step back and get the big picture” kind of day, as I take advantage of the re-entry theme to reflect on the past and its impact on my present reality. The following is the story of how God called me to serve Him overseas. I have some comments to share, but I’ll reserve those for a few posts on calling over the next few days. For now, here’s the story as I tell it to those who ask,

“How were you called into missions?”

A tall, slim Caucasian man wrapped in brightly colored African clothing leaned over the podium while photos of his son holding spears with warriors in Uganda played across the screens on either sides of the church. He shared the verse, “Look at the nations and watch, and be utterly amazed, for God is going to do something in your day that you would believe even if you were told,” from Habakkuk 1:5. He spoke of the lives they had changed while living in Africa and shared exotic tales of hardship and reward.

A 16 year old Leslie soaked in every word and joined just a few people of the hundreds in the service as the preacher asked anyone who felt “called to missions” to come forward.

I had been “called.”

The summer before this I had been on one two week mission trip to Costa Rica with my youth group, traveling around the country performing a mime while a recording narrated in Spanish. On the tour bus I stared out the window thinking, I could do this. God, is this what you want for my life?

Africa had my heart from that time on and I practically attacked any Africans or missionaries to Africa I met for the next several years. But after spending six months in Uganda my senior year of college, I came back humbled and less sure of God’s driving will for my life. Africa? I didn’t think so anymore. Missions? Possibly.

So I lived life. I taught middle school in the city of Chicago and volunteered with the church inner city youth group. After several years, that feeling began to niggle at my heart again–the urge to go that I couldn’t ignore.

So since I was a teacher and had summers off, I told someone at church that I would volunteer to help a missionary from our church for the summer. The first one I heard from was in Tajikistan. Tajiki–what? I ran to the map to find where it even was and told the man from church that I’d just wait to hear back from more. Surely there’d be more. After all, our church supported about 20 missionaries. I heard from one in Canada, but other than that, nope. Tajikistan. I actually emailed the family back to tell them I couldn’t come, but quickly felt that I should go. To Tajikistan. Next to Afghanistan.

I lived with a missionary family in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, for five weeks, helping them with a few projects at the English school they worked for and manning the tiny English library a few days a week. Since they didn’t have a ton for me to do, I basically had all morning free to spend sleeping, reading and listening. And in that time and space, the Lord seemed to indicate that that would be my last year in Chicago and that I should pursue going overseas again to a “closed” country (to missionaries).

When I returned from Tajikistan, China was everywhere I turned. On the radio, in conversations I overheard, in books and mentioned “randomly” by friends. China seemed to be the obvious choice for where I would go.

When I applied and was accepted by an organization to go to China, but was still waiting for placement, I got a call (on the phone, not from God). This wasn’t the way things were usually done, but would I be willing to serve in a very remote placement? A placement with only one teammate? Eight hours from the nearest airport (at that time)? Oh, and it’s not the warm place that you had requested (my ONLY request).

Because of my previous experience with Muslims in Tajikistan, I was now on my organization’s radar as someone with experience in a Muslim area.

I told them I would call them back. I went home and prayed. Within 12 hours, I had two “signs.”

The first was when I Googled the name of the city (a place many Chinese people don’t even know) and the first page I was directed to was about a group from Intervarsity traveling to that very city that summer. The leader listed at the bottom was the sister of one of my best friends in Chicago who lived down the street. Out of all the tiny remote villages in China, “coincidentally,” here was one I had a personal connection with right out of the gate.

The second “sign” was my reading that day in My Utmost for His Highest. I nearly dropped the book as I read:

“We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might…’ (Eccl. 9:10).”

These, along with a general peace that this what God was leading me to do, was what led to me spending three years in a remote city in China and two years in the capital city of that province for full-time language school.

I will say that answering my “call” to China was a bit like an arranged marriage. I never had the fascination with China that I had with Africa and it certainly wasn’t love at first sight when I arrived on Chinese soil (I literally cried when I saw Africa for the first time from the air–not so much with China). My first few days in China I felt like we were just living in a Chinatown that never ended, with more smells assaulting me than I had ever experienced before.

But I distinctly remember a moment at the end of my first year there where I felt myself beginning to fall in love. It was as if God was urging me to go ahead and take the plunge and really be all there. So I did–I allowed myself to fall in love with China and her people and committed myself to being there however long the Lord wanted me there.

I’ll unpack a few of my thoughts regarding calling over the next few days, so be sure to check back in!

Was your call at all similar to mine? If you haven’t gone overseas, do you ever feel that God might be calling you to serve Him in another country?

~~~~~~

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This post is day 16 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

October 14, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, New Work Space {31 Days of Re-Entry}

It has been five years since returning from China and I still haven’t figured out how to live, much less thrive, in my own culture. I have struggled to feign interest when the culture, food, language and people just aren’t as colorful or fascinating. I am often convicted of feeling superior or judging others and I still haven’t reached a stride in building new relationships (could be the judging, perhaps?).

In college, I took a course where we had to do an ethnography on a people group in the suburbs of Chicago in preparation for going overseas to live for six months in a developing country. An ethnography is a way of systematically studying people and cultures while trying to observe from the subject’s point of view.

The first rule of the study?
Observe. Just observe and take notes.

I studied the third graders in the classroom I was aiding in at the time, but some classmates did a few more memorable studies on a Metra train and in a laundry mat outside of Chicago.

A laundry mat. Three months of watching to see what kind of people did their laundry, how much laundry they did, what they talked about, what they did while they waited, how often they came and where they sat…

Sounds boring, but it was actually remarkable what behavior patterns and social norms we discovered by simply observing. I used the experience when I lived in Uganda for six months, in Tajikistan for five weeks and later in China for five years and felt like it helped me to enter a new culture as a learner.

But after returning from China five years ago and assuming I understood my own “boring” culture, I’ve been wondering if I should pull out this tool again. What would I observe if I were more intentional about noticing people in my seemingly homogeneous life? What if I started really paying attention when I go to the following places:

The grocery store
The playground
My son’s preschool
Church
A local coffee shop or bookstore

What would I learn? What would I see? What would surprise me?

The second rule of the ethnography, which we weren’t supposed to do until we went abroad was: Ask questions and seek to understand. We were not to make suggestions for how to improve a situation or even help until we felt we had taken the time to understand before passing judgment.

Do I do this now? Do I ask questions for the purpose of really trying to understand the people around me? Or do I assume too much about them based on how they look?

In China, one of my main goals in being there was to develop relationships with Chinese people. My “manual” for doing that, were I to teach a new person entering China would be something along the lines of this:

Cross-cultural Relationship Building 101
1. Study and learn the language–get a tutor as soon and as frequently as you can.
2. Visit the same shops and visitors to chat with people.
3. Practice hospitality by intentionally having people over to your home and accept invitations to other’s homes.
4. Be an learner first–ask questions.
5. Ask for help and find a local cultural informant.
6. Actively look for ways to serve and bless others.
7. Pray for the people you meet because it is most likely not a coincidence that you are brushing shoulders with them right now.

These guidelines worked very well cross-culturally, but what about here? I firmly believe that you will be the same person after going abroad that you were before you left. But is the reverse true? Am I the same now as I was in China?

Five months ago, my family and I moved from edgy, diverse Chicago to probably the most boring mission field there is: a neighborhood of all white retired people in Loveland, Colorado. My husband and I have been convicted by how snobby we are (What! No pour-over, locally roasted, bird friendly, organic, shade grown coffee!!!???). I am also slightly guilty of reverse racism. It’s hard to believe, but what if God really does love my white pick-up truck driving neighbors as much as the Chinese students in my classroom or the child in the slums of Kampala? And what if I applied Relationship Building 101 here? Would it work?

I’m writing this here now mainly to keep myself accountable to follow through with my own personal challenge to live the SAME wherever I am and to use my “tools” to love the people in my village. My Chinese sister in Christ would call them my “pang bian de ren”–the people next to me. Please help me in praying:

Lord Jesus, show me more than what is on the surface. Show me people’s hearts. Teach me to love the people you have put all around me–wherever I am. Forgive me for being so judgmental and for making assumptions. Help me to not just survive where I am living, but thrive.

In review,
Step one: Observe
Step two: Ask questions
Step three: Build Relationships

I’ll be checking in later to report on how my family is doing! We’ve been observing and asking questions, now on to the relationship building.

Have you ever returned from the field and felt a similar disdain for your passport culture? What kind of tools do you use to engage with your culture–whether that’s in your passport country or abroad?

(This is a practical companion to Longing for Home)

~~~~~~

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This post is day 14 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

October 13, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie {31 Days of Re-Entry}

I am an experience junkie. There, I said it. I’m addicted to change, hilarity and the absurd, being stretched and emerging with ridiculous tales. I don’t know how I survived college intact since I took advantage of as many opportunities as would possibly fit into my schedule.

My sophomore year, I debated whether or not I should do a six month internship in a developing country. When I asked a trusted professor in his 50’s, he told me, “I think you should do it. If I died tomorrow, you wouldn’t have to mourn me at all for the amount of experiences I’ve already had in my lifetime.”

So I lived with a Ugandan family in a village with no indoor plumbing for six months, commuting into Kampala each day to volunteer at a Compassion International child project (don’t be too impressed–I mostly did filing and editing!).

But I thought of my professor’s words…

When I saw a woman balancing 20 pounds of water on her head and a baby on her back who would most likely never travel more than a few miles from her home in her lifetime.

When I saw dying women in the slums covered in flies and dirty children running all around them.

When I realized the girls my age that I befriended had to scrounge for food to feed me when I spent the night at their house.

And later in China, when my students’ dreams were to “go to America,” and I knew they would most likely only be able to take a job teaching back in their poor village and marry a man chosen by their parents.

In Ningxia, China, with my student, the first in her village to go to college

And I wondered: Would the sum total of their life experiences equal:

a less fulfilling life?

a less abundant life?

a less valuable life?

a less meaningful life?

Using my professor’s words, would the reverse be true of their “limited” existence–that we’d have to mourn their lives more because they hadn’t had the chance to go to summer camp as a kid, travel to 10 different countries or earn a Masters degree?

With every experience I am given, I am given more responsibility. I am held more responsible to tell other’s stories, educate those back in my passport country, to be the one voice in the crowd and in the church that can honestly say, “But it isn’t done that way everywhere.”

And I can honestly say that while these experiences are addicting, this kind of exposure to the world and the level of responsibility that it brings can be almost immobilizing.

I feel guilty that I can spend thousands of dollars travelling when it costs me $300 to educate a girl in Uganda for the entire year.

I am burdened when I think of visiting children in an orphanage in Tajikistan who were paralyzed simply because they were never held, sitting hours on plastic toilets in the courtyard.

I am sickened by the 12 year old Thai girls I saw in Chiang Mai in the arms of their 65 year old white tourist “patrons.”

And I ache for the countless women in China that were forced to have abortions because they would have exceeded the number of children allowed by the government.

Yes, I am an experience addict, but the more that I see of the world, the more I find that the experience math just doesn’t compute. Every life is a valuable life, regardless of the amount of experiences. That soot-stained old man selling sweet potatoes on the side of the road in China every day from 7 am to 10 pm is JUST as valuable as me.

God has gifted me with these opportunities not because I am more loved or valuable, but because He expects me to do something with what I experience.

~~~~~~

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This post is day 12 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

October 10, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Babies born, friends wed, new buildings constructed, beloved shops closed and crazy technological advances were changes back home that I had only vaguely been aware of while I was living in China.

I knew I had changed when I was overseas, I just hadn’t made allowances for the fact that everyone back home had, too.

Taiye Selasi, in her TED Talk, “Don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local,” said, “We can never go back to a place and find it exactly where we left it. Something, somewhere will always have changed, most of all, ourselves. People.”

Most of my conflicts that first year back home were the result of me assuming my friends and family had remained frozen in time, waiting for me to return. Naturally.

I remember having a heated conversation with my mom in the fury of wedding planning and she pointed out that my family had changed–I just hadn’t noticed. And not just in the “we like a different kind of cereal than we used to” kind of changing. They had loved hard, overcome struggles, dealt with grief, developed skills and made new discoveries just like I had. Our life lenses were slightly different, but the raw material of Life was still the same.

Six weeks after coming back from China, I began a new job teaching eighth grade in the school I had worked at before moving to China five years earlier. Keep in mind that when I moved to China in 2005, flip phones were all the rage. I got my snazzy silver pocket-sized phone in China and sent all kinds of…text messages. So when I re-entered the states in 2010 to the age of Smartphones, Ipads, and parent portals, I had issues. (Teaching in northwest China, I had been excited if there was a whiteboard in the classroom). Assuming I had a Smartphone like them, parents had new expectations that the teacher respond to emails not just within a day’s time, but within an hour’s time. Grades that used to be private for me with my own system of 5/5 homework points made parents crazy because their kid’s 3/5 showed up as a D on the parent portal. When it came to technology, I had been in a coma for five years.

After living at sea level most of my life, we recently moved to Colorado at about 6,000 ft. altitude. Even athletes in terrific shape arrive early for a race here to allow themselves time to acclimate to the environment. If you have recently returned to your passport culture after living abroad, know that your air will be thinner, breathing more difficult, hills will take longer to climb and, like a dream, the scenery on your hike will be the same, but slightly different than when you left. No matter how strong you are, your body will scream for you to slow down, adapt to your surroundings and re-learn how to breathe the air up here. So listen to it.

And get to know your fellow journeymen again. They have climbed peaks, carried heavy loads, fallen on rocks, meditated and heard from God in ways that will benefit you, even though they have never left their home forest. Walk with them, learn from them and trust them. You are on the same road again.

If you are preparing to return home, maybe take a few moments to jot some notes in your journal. You can use the following questions as a springboard:
1. How have you changed?

2. What major life events have happened to the people you love back home? How do you think they are feeling right now?

3. How have society, pop culture, technology and current events changed while you have been gone? Just as you may have enlisted a cultural mentor from the culture where you have been living, is there someone in your passport culture that could be your cultural mentor?

4. Pray for understanding and a renewed love for your passport culture. Pray for your close family and friends by name.
Have you been on either end of this equation–either the traveler or the family or friend waiting to welcome someone back home? What was your experience?

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This post is day 10 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

October 8, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 8: When You Feel like Shutting Down {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Does your cell phone have a “power saving mode”? One of the features of the phone I use is that it has an “ultra power saving mode,” where you can turn the screen to black and white and only basic calls and texting are functional. When I think about the first few months after returning to America from China, the best way to describe how I felt is to say that I was in “ultra power saving mode.” I did what I could to stay on, but allowed the rest of myself to shut down.

What caused this?

1. I Couldn’t Relate
Life had gone on without me and I just couldn’t catch up. I found myself struggling with a sense of superiority as I listened to friends talk about remodeling their kitchens or “pinning” ideas for their kids’ birthday parties (what was “pinning”?). Instead of entering in, I stood to the side, judging.

2. I Missed Feeling Like I Had Purpose
Most people who serve God overseas are placed in some kind of team. I was on several different teams during my time in China and had gotten used to meeting with the same group several times a week for meals, meetings and prayer. Unlike your usual small group in America, we all had the same job and the same purpose in being there. According to dictionary.com, the word mission means “any important task or duty that is assigned, allotted or self-imposed.” Who wants to go from doing an “important” task to doing a “menial” one?

3. I Didn’t Want Anything to Remind me of China
A couple years ago, my husband and I began to recognize a pattern. Whenever I would read newsletters from my friends who were still serving in China, I would be depressed for a few days after. If a missionary spoke in church, I would find myself in a funk. If someone asked me how I was using my Chinese or if I was keeping in touch with Chinese friends…back in the pit. When I returned from China, the only way I found to cope was to try and shut myself off from anything reminding me of China, because it only seemed to trigger my sense of loss.

November 17, 2010 (4 months after returning)
“Swimming underwater, I feel the pressure of the water all around me. My arms push against the force of it. I am muted, unable to speak and my focus on pushing and physically propelling my body forward inhibits me from thinking, praying or interacting with anyone else. Everyone else is playing on the shore and I am out in the deep.”

I was depressed.

People often ask how long reverse culture shock lasts. The answer: longer than you think it should.

I do feel my experience was compounded by a succession of major life changes immediately following my return–marriage, changing jobs twice, two children and moving cross country all within five years, so it may be a quicker transition for others.

But re-entry can still flatten you when you least expect it.

If you are experiencing any of what I described above, know that you are not alone. God will carry you, my friend, even when you feel like all you want to do is shut down. Slowly, He will revive you and bring you back to life. Trust me.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.”

Matthew 5: 3-5

If you have gone through re-entry, could you relate to any of these struggles? How long did it take you to feel like you were back at “100% power”?

Linking up with Velvet Ashes

This post is day 8 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: Grieving
Day 3: No One Is Special
Day 4: Wasted Gifts
Day 5: I Never Expected…
Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass
Day 7: Did I mishear God?
Day 8: When You Feel Like Shutting Down
Day 9: Caring for your Dorothy
Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed
Day 11: 12 Race Day Lessons for Serving Overseas
Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie
Day 13: Longing for Home
Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, Different Work Space
Day 15: Book Review: The Art of Coming Home
Day 16: The Story of My “Call”
Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”?
Day 18: And Then I Fell in Love
Day 19: Is God Calling You Overseas?
Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal
Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind
Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless
Day 23: When the Nations Come to You
Day 24: The Call to Displacement
Day 25: Scripture Anchors for Re-Entry
Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile
Day 27: Resources for Re-entry
Day 28: A Time for Everything: A Prayer of Leaving
Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry
Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry
Day 31: A Blessing
(Day 32: Writing is Narcissistic (And Four Other Reasons Not to Write)–a reflection on this Write 31 Days experience)

October 7, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 7: Did I Mishear God? {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Yesterday night I read the following story to my son before bed:

“Once upon a mountaintop, three little trees stood and dreamed of what they wanted to become when they grew up.

The first little tree looked up at the stars twinkling like diamonds above him. ‘I want to hold treasure,’ he said. ‘I want to be covered with gold and filled with precious stones. I will be the most beautiful treasure chest in the world!’

The second little tree looked out at the small stream trickling by on its way to the ocean. ‘I want to be a strong sailing ship, ‘ he said. ‘I want to travel mighty waters and carry powerful kings. I will be the strongest ship in the world!’

The third little tree looked down into the valley below where busy men and busy women worked in a busy town. ‘I don’t want to leave this mountaintop at all,’ she said. ‘I want to grow so tall that when people stop to look at me they will raise their eyes to heaven and think of God. I will be the tallest tree in the world!’

The trees grew and one day three woodcutters came and cut the trees for their own purposes. [My 3-year-old son was very distraught at this point].

The first tree was fashioned into a feed box for animals, the second into a simple fishing boat, and the third into strong beams which were left in the lumberyard. ‘What happened?’ the once-tall tree wondered. ‘All I ever wanted to do was stay on the mountaintop and point to God…'”

Some of the most confusing times of my life have come when I have been convinced that I was doing God’s will, only to have my way blocked. One time I thought the Lord had told me that I would marry a certain person (I didn’t) and the other was when I thought the Lord had told me to go into missions. If you have read any of my previous posts, but especially the one about wasted gifts, you know my angst in leaving China. Since I was 16 years old, I was convinced I would serve the Lord overseas, so when He made it very clear that He wanted me to leave the field, return to America and get married, I couldn’t understand how that could be His will.

Had I misheard God?

I sometimes wonder if the Apostle Paul felt confused when the Holy Spirit prevented him from going to certain cities to tell them about Jesus (Acts 16). Why wouldn’t God want that? And why would God allow him to be imprisoned, when the word missionary itself means “a person SENT”? What good could he do from inside a prison? (wink, wink)

[This is an aside: This will sound melodramatic, but thinking about Paul in prison actually helped me to prepare for motherhood. Stay with me here. When I entered motherhood, I felt what my husband and I call The Narrowing happen even more. Used to being fiercely independent and willing to travel anywhere, I knew that having a child would restrict that in many ways. To be dramatic, I was being put in Parent Prison. How was this better than seeing “the nations” come to Christ? But it was helpful to think of all the ways Paul ministered FROM prison. Think of all the “prison epistles” we wouldn’t have if Paul had never spent that time in a jail cell…]

In addition to Paul, I can also relate to David and Moses’ passion to serve God in a specific way that didn’t go as planned. David’s dream was to be the one to build a temple for the Lord, but God chose his son, Solomon, to do it instead (2 Sam. 7). And when Moses finally tried to right the injustices against the Jews (by fighting and killing a man), the timing was all wrong (Exodus 2). Instead, he fled to Midian for 40 years before he was truly called via burning bush to go back to Egypt and convince Pharaoh to let his people go.

Lately, I have actually been thinking of my time back in the states as “My Midian.” I came here to get married, have children and now “tend the flock.” Moses actually seemed to forget all about the plight of his people, just as many days go by for me now without a thought of China. But God was the one who “heard the groaning; and God remembered his covenant…God saw…and God took notice of them” (Ex. 2:24). This doesn’t remove our responsibility, but it certainly assuages my guilt when I remember that God is the one who sees and delivers–not me. Moses had moved on and was just living his life. And THEN he was called in a way that was unmistakable.

Conclusion to The Three Trees:

“Many many days and nights passed. The three trees nearly forgot their dreams.

But one night golden starlight poured over the first tree as a young woman placed her newborn baby in the feed box…and suddenly the first tree knew he was holding the greatest treasure in the world.

One evening a tired traveler and his friends crowded into the old fishing boat. The traveler fell asleep…Soon a thundering and thrashing storm arose…He knew he did not have the strength to carry so many passengers safely through the wind and rain. The tired man awakened. He stood up, stretched out his hand and said, ‘Peace.’ The storm stopped as quickly as it had begun. And suddenly the second tree knew he was carrying the King of heaven and earth.

One Friday morning, the third tree was startled when her beams were yanked from the forgotten woodpile. She flinched as she was carried through any angry, jeering crowd. She shuddered when soldiers nailed a mans’ hands to her…

But on Sunday morning, when the sun rose and the earth trembled with joy beneath her, the third tree knew that God’s love had changed everything.

It had made the first tree beautiful.

It had made the second tree strong.

And every time people thought of the third tree, they would think of God.

That was better than being the tallest tree in the world.”

The Tale of Three Trees: A Traditional Folktale. Retold by Angela Elwell Hunt. Colorado Springs, CO: Lion Publishing, 1989.

We never really know how God plans to use us, do we? Our gifts, dreams and plans for God are never wasted, but sometimes they may be “up-cycled” into something even more beautiful, strong and glorifying to God than we could have ever asked or imagined.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

(Is. 55:8-9, NIV)

Have you ever felt you “misheard God”? Which of your dreams for God have gone unrealized?

This post is day 7 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts:

Linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee

October 6, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass {31 Days of Re-Entry}

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I-I hardly know, sir, just at present-at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain MYSELF, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 5)

Last week, my husband and I got to see the stage production of Looking Glass Alice and I couldn’t help thinking how much her experience compared to the way I felt in returning to America.

I was probably overly confident as I stepped off the plane in Chicago. I had experienced closure of sorts in China, was eagerly anticipating getting engaged and married and felt that I would be able to move forward at the same rate of emotional and spiritual growth that I had the past five years in China. But, like Alice, my reality was severely altered. When you come back from being assimilated into another culture, you have changed in ways that you can’t even imagine, much less explain to another person.

As I packed up my apartment at the end of my time in China, I popped the pictures out of their frames, which were too bulky for a suitcase, thinking how much like the pictures I was–staying the same, but just changing frames. I had no idea that not only was my frame changing, but that I was an entirely different picture than I was when I left five years before.

Two months after returning from China, I wrote:
Sept. 18, 2010
“Had a major meltdown Thursday night. I think the tiredness and emotions of the past few weeks finally just needed a release. It seems like I’m in tears every couple weeks and that has never been my pattern. But I think a lot of it is reverse culture shock. As expected, it’s strange to work in the exact same place I did before where everyone assumes that I, too, am the same.”

In China, I taught no more than 16 hours a week, leaving the rest of my time open to develop relationships with Chinese people. An extrovert, this was a dream come true for me. You mean my JOB is to hang out with people?! So it was no wonder that when I returned to America and immediately entered into a 50 hour a week teaching job (and was planning a wedding), I felt life was like a rope that I could never quite grasp as it was constantly slipping through my fingers, chafing and burning along the way.

A little over two months after I returned to America, I wrote:
Sept. 30, 2010
“The weeks are flying by. I can’t believe it’s already the 4th week of school. Every second has been accounted for, every spare minute claimed for some important task. I miss being.”

Nov. 13, 2010
“This is such a strange time of my life. It’s uncomfortable having my time shoved into a vice and compressed down to minutes. And I’m still missing China…”

Not only had my expectations for amount of time I would have for people and quiet time in a day changed, but many of my simple life routines had altered as well. With fresh vegetable stands outside my apartment complex year-round, no car, a grocery store a mile away and little access to western food, my eating habits in China had changed drastically.

Along with that, all the people where I lived would come home from work and school to have lunch as a family and NAP from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm. I eventually followed suit. It was glorious. Even my laundry routines changed. Five years later, I STILL can’t bear to dry my clothes after having to hang dry them for five years.

My expectations of relationships shifted as well. In America, I had forgotten that with many people, you have to plan several weeks in advance if you want to hang out. In China, I would plan in advance in my head, but invite someone to do something the day before or maybe two days beforehand (otherwise, you’d get stood up!).

As I reflect back on this rocky time of life, I think I should have taken a bit more time to re-adapt to my home culture. If I could do it again, I wouldn’t have taken such a demanding job at such a time of transition. As I mentioned in a previous post, I would have sought out counseling to work through some of this change and asked for more help from friends.

But it’s difficult when you are trapped in the looking glass to know exactly how to get yourself out.

“So you think you’re changed, do you?”

“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice, “I can’t remember things as I used–and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 5)

A few weeks after returning to Chicago, I wrote:
Aug. 26, 2010
“Lord, please help me to move on from the last chapter and live fully in this one and the one after that. Prepare my heart. Give me godly counsel and godly perspective…Help me to recognize that no matter where I am, who I’m with or what I’m doing, that my identity will not change. I am a daughter of the King. I am Christ’s beloved, bathed and cleansed from sin and shame and allowed to dance and worship before my Creator.”

How has living overseas changed you? Have you brought any daily routines back into your passport culture with you?

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This post is day 6 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

Picture: Arthur Rackham [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

October 5, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 5: I Never Expected…{31 Days of Re-Entry}

The following journal entries are of the cyclical (or “spaghetti brain,” as my husband calls it) variety that I warned you of earlier, but I think even that is a testament to the nature of re-entry. Questions of identity, grief, doubt and confusion will circle back around daily at first, then weekly and eventually you will be so in the thick of life back “home,” that they will only occasionally tap at your heart.

My personal struggle came from a place of slowly accepting that my “call to missions” and my call to marriage would have to be a mutually exclusive one.

This first journal entry was written the week after I flew back to the states, and 4 days after I got engaged.

July 22, 2010
“It feels surreal to be here [in Chicago] and yet so natural at the same time. I think I just feel like I’m on vacation, though in some ways I do feel like I’m suspended in air and homeless. God-willing, I’ll be married on January 15, about 6 months from now. This is amazing and wonderful, but also so much harder than I thought.

I never expected to have to give up missions.

I never expected that I would marry someone who wasn’t in ministry.

I never expected to be living in Chicago again.

I love this city–the lake, gardens, quaint neighborhoods, diversity, culture and quirks–but I just don’t feel at home here anymore.

It’s kind of like having an old coat that you loved and wore for years, but eventually decided to give to Goodwill. You finally allowed yourself to part with it and invest in a new coat, but one day the coat is returned to you and the giver expects you to wear it with the same level of affection you had when it was new. It is difficult to love a place when your heart has already moved on to somewhere else.

Jesus, you are my Rock. People, places and life circumstances may change, but You never do. You are the same here that you were in China.

Lord God, thank you for your abundant blessings. Please forgive me for being like the Israelites, who begged to be delivered out of Egypt, only to spend the next 40 years complaining about the manna and the wandering. Forgive me Lord, for I’ve been begging for a life partner for half my life and now all I can do is see what I’m giving up. Please transform my attitude.

Lord Jesus,
You are my life.
You give my life meaning and purpose.
You are my joy, hope and peace.
You provide for all my needs.
You never leave, fail or forsake me.
You cleanse me and forgive my sins.
You fill all my empty places and give me a firm place to stand.

Not Adam.
Not China.
Not being a teacher or missionary or student.

You are my identity and that will never change.”

Feb. 3, 2011 (I was married Jan. 15, 2011)
“My life is so different than what I thought it would be, but it feels so right and good. I love being married and have no doubt that this is your will. I’m just not sure how the past 15 years relate to now…

Please help me to keep moving forward, keep listening, keep growing.”

Acknowledgement of expectations, acceptance of God’s will, reorienting yourself to the cross and moving forward are all healthy ways to cope with the pain and confusion you may feel in re-entry. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself journaling about the same struggles again, and again, and again…

How has your life been different from the way you expected? Was leaving the field confusing to you because you thought that you had been called there for life? How did you cope with this transition?

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This post is day 5 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days. Check out my other posts in the series:

Category: China

Day 20: Life Is Not Seasonal {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 18: And Then I Fell In Love {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 16: The Story of My “Call” {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 14: Readjusting: Same Tools, New Work Space {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 12: Confessions of an Experience Junkie {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 10: You’re Not the Only One Who’s Changed {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 8: When You Feel like Shutting Down {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 7: Did I Mishear God? {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 6: Identity: Through the Looking Glass {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 5: I Never Expected…{31 Days of Re-Entry}

Welcome to Scraping Raisins!