Day 4: Wasted Gifts {31 Days of Re-Entry}

If you read my post yesterday, you know that I struggle with pride, so it will come as no surprise to you that when watching the movie, The Incredibles, I identify with being an undercover super hero. If you haven’t seen the movie, a super hero couple marries and decides to try and live a “normal” suburban life without using their powers, until, of course evil forces threaten and they are coerced into using their powers once again. Currently a stay-at-home-mom in America, I sometimes feel like some of my gifts for language, culture and teaching have gone into hiding. I am Elastigirl incognito.

From childhood, we develop gifts that we often use only for a season, or they are latent in us until we have an opportunity to feed and water them once more. Those who have changed careers, left jobs to stay home with children, immigrants with PhD’s working at McDonald’s in the states, those who were concert pianists, on the varsity team or on the traveling dance team in their childhood can probably relate.

Missionaries develop a unique skill set that is often less useful if they return to their passport country: tribal languages, cultural knowledge, bargaining skills, and the ability to live without running water and electricity aren’t skills that are usually in high demand in the western world. If you return home, are you wasting your gifts? Will you ever use them again?

I returned to the states to marry an amazing man, an actor who had just begun recording audio books full time, but did theater on the side. He studied theater in college and has his MFA in acting. In addition to loving God (and me), His passions in life are books, theater, Frisbee and craft coffee (in changing order depending on the time of day).

Before I met my husband, I got my Masters in Intercultural Studies and spent five years studying Mandarin Chinese, including two years of full time study, fully intending to spend the rest of my life in China. Weeks before we met, I began applying to PhD programs in cultural studies.

But God had different plans for us.

It seemed that each of us, in being called to marriage, were being called to lay our most precious gifts on the altar. Missions and China for me and theater for him.

Upon returning to the states, one of the most painful questions someone could ask me was, “Are you using your Chinese?” It triggered a sense of shame that I was perhaps squandering a gift I had spent hours in honing. Likewise, my husband now knows to brace himself for sadness when he attends his friend’s plays or is asked what show he is currently in.

In the past five years of being back in the states, my husband and I have each had some opportunities to use these latent gifts, which I may go into in another post, but for the most part, we have had to leave these talents buried in the ground.

From the world’s perspective, this is “waste,” but God seems to operate by a different economy and at times, His equations just don’t seem to balance. Living overseas, I was always surprised when the most “qualified” people (fluent in the language, with deep relationships, culturally savvy) were the ones that seemed to leave. How could God want that when they were “doing so much to help the kingdom?”

Similarly, in Scripture, I have always been baffled by the fact that God called Paul, who seems like he would have been the perfect candidate for ministry to the Jews, to preach to the Gentiles. Not logical.

Paul must have felt this loss. It seems to come through in Philippians 3, where he recounts his qualifications as being a Pharisee from the “right” lineage. He knew what he was capable of by the world’s standards. And yet. He counts all these as LOSS for the sake of Christ. He is willing to lose all–his status, education, gifts and abilities–for the sake of knowing Christ.

This is the kind of man God wanted to use to spread His kingdom in the world.

Jesus, take my gifts.

I break this valuable alabaster jar and pour it out for you.

You are worthy of my every sacrifice because you already sacrificed your life for mine.

Nothing done for you or for your glory can ever be considered “waste.”

Thank you, Jesus.

Do you feel that you have latent gifts? What gifts is Christ asking you to lay at His feet until He chooses to use them again?

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This post is day 4 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 3, 2015January 23, 2018

Day 3: No One Is Special {31 Days of Re-entry}

This short story is my gift to you. It’s my favorite.

Before I met my husband, he needed to have his wisdom teeth removed. As many of us have done, he thought to himself, This anesthetic isn’t going to work on ME. I’m special. And then he woke up. Soon, he began getting tons of text messages from friends he hadn’t heard from in years. “We think you’re special, Adam!” they said. Or, “Praying for you!” Confused, he checked back in his sent box on his phone to see if perhaps he may have sent something in his drugged state. Sure enough, he had sent a message to EVERYONE in his contacts–old professors, clients, acquaintances…everyone: a picture of himself with puffy, black and blue cheeks and bloody gauze sticking out of his mouth with the caption, “No one is special.”

With the exception of a few places in the world, when you go to live in a non-western culture, you feel special. Living in the middle of nowhere in northwest China with four foreigners in our entire city, I literally caused fender benders.

When I visited spots like the Terracotta Warriors or the Great Wall, people would ask to take their picture with me (seriously! I counted 10 different people once!) Once I was reading in a noodle shop when I looked up to see a group of Hui (Muslim) men decked out in National Geographic-worthy garb, holding their cell phones up to sneak a picture of me!

People would jab their friends to look up at us as we walked down the street (even after living on the same street for three years). We were called foreign “experts.” Ha. I’m still not sure what I was supposed to be an expert at. In large meetings at our university, we would always be given the best food, hotel rooms and seats–simply because we were their guests. I certainly felt special.

It was a bit more tame, but the pedestal effect was present in the U.S. as well. I mean, I must have been special to have multiple invitations to speak in small groups and in front of churches, right? People supported me financially, prayerfully and just socially as they prioritized my yearly visits. Missionaries receive a certain kind of fame within the church that is just hard not to enjoy. In the eyes of the church, you are a Super Christian.

And then you’re not.

You step down and walk among all the normal, “boring” Christians again. You go to Target, get a “secular” job and are no longer sought out by people at church who once wanted to meet the “missionary who lives in China.” As annoying as the attention could be on those days back in the country where you just wanted to be anonymous and buy a tube of toothpaste without everyone commenting on your decision, it somehow sunk into your brain that you should be noticed. You’re special, after all.

So now I believe that one of God’s greatest gifts to me was to bring me back. The painful process has reminded me that I am not special. Am I loved by God? Yes. But special? Jesus Himself, though He was equal with God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but took the nature of a servant (Phil. 2). My motives in serving overseas had slowly shifted as I had begun to selfishly enjoy that I was “special.”

I love this quote from Amy Young about her return to the states after living in China for over 20 years:
“Was I willing to stay in a story I thought was interesting on the surface so that people would think I am interesting even though I was fading in it? Was I the kind of person who cared so much about others opinions I was willing to prostitute myself to being interesting? Was being interesting my altar?”
(From the post “A Great Fear {As Pertaining to the Story of my Life}”, by Amy Young of The Messy Middle, Dec. 6, 2013.)

After being back in the states for 3 months, I copied this down in my journal from My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers (Oct. 16):

“No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ’s own…and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work–He calls us to Himself.”

Stepping out of the spotlight, we are stripped down to the essence of who we truly are–and that can be terrifying. This is grace. He is grace. And our identity is found through our humble acceptance that we are nothing without Christ, but are complete in Him and Him alone.

Have you ever noticed that you have begun enjoying the feeling of being special just because you live overseas? Do you think missionaries are somehow more special than others? If you have returned, how have you dealt with this realization?

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Resources:
Jonathan Trotter wrote this article (that I wish I had written!) for the website, A Life Overseas, called “The Idolatry of Missions.” Such a poignant and true testament to some of what I have experienced.

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This post is day 3 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 2, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 2: Grieving {31 Days of Re-entry}

Sipping wine out of plastic cups, chatting and laughing about our attempts at painting, my mom and I got to be “creative” (aka paint the same picture as 30 other women in the room) at Studio Vino a few weeks ago. The teacher kept reminding us to take a break from our painting, back up and look from a few steps back. From far away, our paintings actually looked halfway decent!

It has been almost exactly five years since I returned from China and I feel like I’m just now benefitting from the big picture view. Most of my posts this month will include some journal entries from my time of re-entry and, like re-watching a movie with the commentary turned on, I will comment on my thoughts as I share them with you. In eastern (as opposed to western) fashion, these posts may not be as linear as I would like, but more cyclical, repeating similar themes and thoughts. (Or maybe that’s just the female brain?)

Journal
One month before leaving China…

June 18, 2010
“Father God, I give you my grieving over leaving China, my uncertainty about living in Chicago, my fears about transition, identity and purpose, and my hopes and anxieties about marriage. Please prepare my heart for the next step.

Yesterday Adam texted me Joshua 1:9 ‘Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’ Joshua was a man in transition (to say the least).

And I just ‘stumbled’ on this in Isaiah 46: 3-4: ‘Listen to me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel. You who have been borne by me from birth, and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age, I shall be the same, and even to your graying years I shall bear you! I have done it and I shall carry you; and I shall bear you, and I shall deliver you.'”

After being back in the states several months…

Nov. 11, 2010
Lord God, I have so many emotions and thoughts swirling within me and I don’t know how to make sense of them But I know I miss you. You comfort me from the inside. You don’t change my circumstances, but you change my perspective. Last night it’s as if you were saying, ‘I never promised that you or your life would never change, but I did promise that I would never change.’ Lord, I just feel this massive sense of loss when I think about how much time I put into learning Chinese and studying culture. Am I really supposed to just let all that go?”

Dec. 8, 2010
“…Do you want me to do some counseling regarding my reverse culture shock? Most days I’m fine, but when it hits me, I feel almost like despairing of life. Is this a sign that I’m out of step with your will, Lord? Please give me wisdom.”

Dec. 12, 2010
“Under the circumstances, this can’t be anything but an uncomfortable time. Not only is everything in my life changing, but the ground I am standing on now feels more like a floating island (where it is constantly raining).

So Psalm 139 was comforting this morning: ‘Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Thy hand will lead me, and Thy right hand will lay hold of me.” (v. 7-10). Lately, I wonder if the darkness will overwhelm me, but you say ‘even the darkness is not dark to Thee, and the night is as bright as the day’ (v. 12). Thank you, Lord.”

Reflection
This all sounds so dramatic, but leaving China was very similar to grieving the loss of a loved one. First, you feel that you are drowning and can’t catch your breath, but slowly the grief begins to come in waves, then ripples, then surprises you as it laps at your feet even years later. Leaving a place you love and truly felt called to is grief. But the Lord has been with me each step of this confusing journey. And it has been such a comfort to know that He is the SAME. In retrospect, I wish that I had actually found some counseling. In future posts, I hope to add some resources for those experiencing this that I myself would have appreciated having at the time.

In spite of not getting help (and consequently having weekly meltdowns with my fiancé in the months after the return), one thing I think I did right was turn to Scripture. I find I used many surging wave/lost at sea/drowning metaphors in my journals at the time and Christ was certainly my rock/anchor/true north in a time of life churning all around me.

Have you felt like leaving a culture was like grieving? How have you coped?

Resources:
Check out my friend, Kim’s post on Re-Entry on Velvet Ashes. Her description of the grieving process really resonated with me.

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This post is day 2 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:

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September 18, 2015January 13, 2017

Keeping Your Bearings When Living Cross-Culturally

It is easy to feel lost when you cross cultures. Really any of the analogies will suffice—lost at sea, stranded in a crowd, wandering in the forest or in a new place in the dark. A few years ago I learned how to scuba dive and the most terrifying feeling was when you became so disoriented that you lost track of the surface of the water. Living cross culturally can feel just like that (though re-entry can feel much the same)—you are swimming along enjoying the experience when you’re suddenly lost, alone and scared. Here are some of the ways to keep your bearings when you begin to lose track of who you are, where you are and what you’re even doing there in the first place.

1. Die to yourself, but don’t lose yourself. You are going to have to die to yourself daily and most of the time you won’t get to choose the crosses. You may as well accept this. God will honor your sacrifice. At the same time, look for ways the Lord is trying to bless you by allowing you to be the person you were before you moved overseas. For me, it was running and cooking. In China, I lived near the countryside, so I could run without everyone in town elbowing their neighbor to come out and check out the strange white girl running without being chased, but I know other foreigners who had gym memberships and used that as their outlet. When I lived in Africa, I laced up and ran through the village in my long skirt at the crack of dawn. You can make it work.

2. You are not going to change the culture, so you may as well start noticing some of the great parts about it. Anyone who has visited China knows those aspects of Chinese culture that just grate westerners the wrong way (no lines, pushing in crowds, never actually saying no even when you mean no—to name a few), but what about those aspects of non-western culture that we need to learn from? Those parts that are actually, possibly MORE biblical, like not being so darn independent and individualistic that we can’t ask for help?

3. Stay calibrated and keep your bearings. Have you ever had to “calibrate” your printer? According to dummies.com:

“Calibration refers to the proper alignment of the inkjet cartridge nozzles to the paper and each other; without a properly calibrated printer, your print quality degrades. You’ll want to calibrate your printer when you see lines appearing fuzzy in artwork or when colored areas in printed images start or stop before they should.”

If your “print quality” is “degrading” or your lines are appearing “fuzzy,” then it’s back to the cross with you for calibration! This is often easier said than done, but taking an hour or two out of my day or week to sit at the feet of Jesus can do wonders for my perspective. Do you need to spend some time being “calibrated” and realigned to Jesus again?

Most of us are familiar with this verse (though the Message version was new to me):

“Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” 1 Corinthians 9: 22-23 (MSG)

We need to keep our bearings in Christ—not our bearings in ourselves, our culture, our expat community or even in the culture we are striving so hard to adjust to, but our bearings in Christ first. He is our true North in the disorienting confusion of a culture that we start to understand just in time to be eluded by another question.

4. Lastly, enjoy the gift of Kingdom Culture. Kingdom Culture is that sweet spot of culture sharing made possible by belief in the same Savior; the center of a Venn diagram where insider and outsider culture collide into a central culture of love, sacrifice and humility at the foot of the cross. There is nothing like the cross to serve as the great equalizer. I finally discovered this through relationships with other brothers and sisters in Christ who just seemed to “get” me even though our cultures collided in so many ways. This is a special gift of grace made possible by a gracious Father.

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken

The crownless again shall be king.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 10

What are some of the ways you have creatively been able to retain parts of your identity even though you are living overseas? Are you staying calibrated to the cross? What changes to you need to make to be able to do this? How have you experienced Kingdom Culture?

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Linking up with Velvet Ashes

Here are a few related posts that I found interesting:

“The Seven Lies of Living Cross-Culturally,” http://www.thecultureblend.com/?p=2172

“Living Well Where you don’t belong,” http://www.alifeoverseas.com/living-well-where-you-dont-belong/

“17 Things that Change Forever When you Live Abroad,” http://masedimburgo.com/2014/06/04/17-things-change-forever-live-abroad/

Photo: By Jeremy Harbeck (NASA) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

March 15, 2013January 13, 2017

Missionary Gone Rogue

I am a missionary gone rogue. Funded by supporters and my organization to live in China, I received a masters in Intercultural Studies and spent two years in full-time language school studying Chinese. I had relationships, was living in a Chinese community complete with neighbor visitors, vegetable gardens, and a live-in pet bunny. I was called. I was thriving. I was fluent. And then I came home.

I remember discussing missions with friends in high school. “I’ll go if God really wants me to go, but I want to stay,” they’d say. I’d surprise them with, “I’ll stay if He really wants me to stay, but I want to go!” I finally had my chance to go to China and lived there, loving it, from 2005 to 2010. So when God had other plans and led me back to the states, it was with great difficulty that I surrendered to His mysterious plan.

His plan included rerouting my path from China, missions, language study and a PhD study to changing diapers, making goofy faces at my 6-month-old and quiet evenings with my husband. My plan was to marry a missionary in northwest rural China, while God’s plan for me included marrying an actor living in the northside of Chicago. This blog will hopefully serve as an outlet as I reconcile my desire to live a ruggedly adventurous life serving God where most people will never go with the journey that He has me on, serving God on the normal, domestic path that many mamas have tread before me.

Category: China

Day 4: Wasted Gifts {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 3: No One Is Special {31 Days of Re-entry}

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Day 2: Grieving {31 Days of Re-entry}

Keeping Your Bearings When Living Cross-Culturally

Missionary Gone Rogue

Welcome to Scraping Raisins!