Day 31: A Blessing {31 Days of Re-Entry}

For the one who feels grateful and hopeful,

may you rejoice and give thanks for this chapter in your life (Phil. 3:1).

For the one who feels alone,

may you have courage to keep moving forward and to know that God will never leave you or forsake you (Deut. 31:6).

For the one who feels like a failure,

may you trust that God is the One who accomplishes His purposes and that sometimes we are to wait in faith for Him to bring the harvest (Is. 55:11).

For the one who feels lost,

may you dwell in the shelter of the Most High and abide in the shadow of the Almighty (Ps. 91:1).

For the one who feels uprooted,

may you soon be able to put roots downward and bear fruit upward

(Is. 37:31; Jer. 17:7-8).

For the one who feels powerless and out of control,

may you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus as you walk on the waves (Mat. 14:22-33).

For the one who is leaving under bitter or tragic circumstances,

may God comfort you as a parent comforts their child (Is. 66:13).

For the one who is unsure of the next step,

may God’s Word light your path one step at a time (Ps. 119:105).

For the one who is not sure who they are anymore,

may you accept that you are hidden with Christ in God and that you are a child of the King (Col. 3:3; Jn. 1:12-13).

For the one who is burnt out and weary,

may you transfer your burden to Christ and find rest for your soul (Mat. 11:28-30).

For the one who left behind conflict with teammates or nationals,

may you do what you can to have peace, but then leave the conflict at the altar and move on (2 Cor. 2:1-14).

For the one who needs rest, but must keep serving, giving and working,

may you be given strength (Is. 40:28-31).

For the one who has made great sacrifices,

may you receive the joy of knowing that Christ, our broken bread and poured out wine, loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7).

For the one who feels disillusioned, jaded or cynical,

may you find faith even the size of a mustard seed to ask God to help your unbelief (Mat. 17:20; Mk. 9:24).

And for the one who saw miracles, answers to prayer and souls saved,

may you boast in and praise the Lord for all that He has done (Ps. 34:1-3).

May you feel the pleasure and presence of Christ as you walk forward into this next chapter of your life

and experience even more of His fullness and grace.

Though your place may change, the Person you are planted on never will,

for He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8).

Amen.

~~~~~~

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This post is day 31 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 30, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry {31 Days of Re-Entry}

As we’ve established, any number of metaphors can aptly illustrate your re-entry experience: trapped underwater, on a boat in raging waters, emerging from another world like Dorothy in Oz or Alice through the Looking Glass or the story behind the word re-entry itself– the feeling that you are re-entering Earth from outer space. No matter the metaphor, whether you feel a tremor or have your whole world collapse (just to add another metaphor to the mix), I hope that these tips will be useful in getting you stabilized.

1. Leave Well
Leaving begins months before you actually leave. Be sure to leave ample time to sort through and give away anything you won’t be bringing back with you (which, if you have truly strived to make your foreign house your home, you may have a ton). Sort, give away and sell your possessions well before you need to do your final packing and goodbyes.

Make a bucket list of places you want to visit in the last six months of your stay. Another really insightful blog series called Falling Forward: Thoughts and Tips on Transition, mentions this as well as intentionally meeting with friends to tell them how much they have meant to you. If you’re like me and have a hard time doing this, I find writing letters or notes to friends meets the same need. But however much you would like to skip this step, grieving will actually be more difficult if you don’t try and reach some form of closure before you leave.

2. Prepare
Come back to this blog series! But seriously, read articles, books and talk to friends BEFORE you leave so that you have a better idea of what to expect. If you are reading this now before your departure, then you are already on track. If you can, attend a conference as soon as you return, but be sure to book it well in advance since many of the good ones fill up early. It’s kind of the idea of reading marriage books before you are engaged because once you are engaged you’ll discuss the wedding more than that actual marriage to follow.

You may be in too much of a fog when you return to actually crack open the books or seek out the help you need. Find and read them beforehand (check out my resource page here). You may also want to prepare your loved ones by telling them that you may need a little extra TLC in the coming weeks and months.

3. Express
Cry, journal, talk, pray, email or text friends–do whatever it takes to work out your emotions. I had no problem with the crying, praying or journaling thing, but I had a hard time finding people to talk to who could actually relate to what I was going through. Find someone who understands and if you can’t, the website Velvet Ashes has some connection groups for women to join online for encouragement and accountability.

I can’t speak for men, but being married to one, I would imagine that this tip of surviving re-entry would be the most difficult to tackle. Perhaps find a female friend to listen to you? We’re usually pretty good listeners:-)

4. Be a Tourist in Your Hometown
Though Chicago had interesting sites galore, because I didn’t have the attitude of a tourist, I didn’t look for opportunities to explore and be an adventurer in my hometown. I think having that mentality would have helped with my transition. Even if you live in Dixon, IL, population 16,000 (my husband’s hometown), you could find at least one or two new places to explore. Take on the attitude of an observer and learner just as you did in a foreign country.

5. Do the Next Thing
You may have heard of this poem by an anonymous poet, but quoted by Elisabeth Elliot, titled “Do the Next Thing.” For a while, this is how you are going to need to live. You may need to find a new job, housing, buy a car, acquire new stuff and get reacquainted with friends and family. Just worry about what you need to do today.  Then do the next thing.  And then the next thing after that. God will show you, lead you and guide you, but, as Amy Carmichael mentioned in  Candles in the Dark in her devotion titled “The Next Step,” the lamp unto our feet may only light our footsteps one step at a time (Ps. 119:105).

6. Give People a Chance
Your loved ones, while they may have read all your newsletters and correspondence, will most likely not have a framework for what you have experienced. Imagine talking to someone who has literally gone to the moon. You would be fascinated…until they start boring you with the technicalities of cargo, equipment and heat shields. Give them grace and give them information over a period of time and not all at once.

Along with this, it is easy to assume that people you meet have NO idea what you have experienced, and they may surprise you with their own stories. Just be prepared with a 20 second, five minute and 15 minute answer to the question, “How was your time in X?” Read their body language carefully to see if they are the slightest bit interested before you launch into the long answer (shifting eyes and a quick excuse to get another drink is a sure sign of “get me out of here”). You have lovely stories, just save them for those who love you the most. And be prepared for people to ask you if and when you are going back.

7. Adjust Your Attitude
This is a difficult one because it will actually be difficult to control your attitude at first. You are going to love being back, but then, much like culture shock, you are going to hate. it. And depending on where you lived, you will especially hate the materialism, the fact that you have to choose from 247 bottles of salad dressings and have to decode the newest food and diet fads. I practically had a break down in one of the biggest Whole Foods in America because I just couldn’t choose what to eat in their café section.

But you need to tell yourself the same thing you told yourself when you moved to an entirely new culture:
“This country is not better or worse, just DIFFERENT. It’s just different.” Say it out loud. “Not better or worse, just DIFFERENT.”

8. Have Patience
I mentioned in an earlier post that you will want to know how long this foggy, drowning, lost feeling will last and I hate to tell you that it will last much longer than you think it should. Just as grief begins to spread out into slow, lapping waves, like a boat that has gone by and left its wake, your grief over leaving your old life will return months and even years after you have come back. A big fear I had was that I would forget all that I had experienced, so one positive aspect of this recurring grief is that it forces you to remember.

9. Take Root and Bear Fruit
If you are a Jesus follower, my advice to you is to cling to Him. And as you do, He will enable you to begin to put down some roots in the city where you are living, which will lead to bearing fruit (Is. 37:31). It may take a little while, but eventually you will need to accept that God has led you home and that He has new ways He wants to bless, grow, mature and use you. Though your world may feel like it’s spinning hypnotically around, God is in control and He is the same at home that He was abroad. He is your constant and His Word is a great stabilizer.

10. Find an Outlet
Depending on where you live, you may be able to find other cultures right in your town–even if it’s just an ethnic restaurant, a 7-Eleven or a nail salon. Since coming back, I found a place to tutor Chinese women trying to get their citizenship, volunteered at an ESL class (with my baby, I might add), hosted an international student party, had a Saudi Arabian girl live with us for a year, and taught at a private Christian school in Chinatown (it all sounds a lot more impressive than it is-some of these were only for a short time–just giving you ideas!). If you live anywhere near a university or even a community college, most of these places have international students who would love to befriend a native speaker.

11. Go Back
I had the opportunity to go back to Uganda seven years after I first left, and China, a year after I left. It was so helpful to return to those places to remind me of the realities of living in another country when I had begun to romanticize my previous experience. Going back to China, it was strange to feel so at home at a place, and yet have so much clarity about being back in the states. If you have the chance, returning to the place where you lived is a helpful way to further bring closure to your experience.

12. Reflect on Your Experience
You have changed. You have faced challenges, learned new languages, seen God answer prayers in miraculous ways, been used in spite of your weaknesses and been given what you needed exactly when you needed it.

Or maybe your leaving wasn’t under the best of circumstances and you feel bitter and wounded. You feel angry at God and doubt whether He even led you there to begin with.

Don’t just jump back into the rushing current of your hometown busyness, but take the time to reflect and consider where you have come from and where you are going. Sit quietly. Listen. Get away. Have a silent retreat. If you have kids, then try and spend some time alone as a family for a week or two in a place where you can decompress.

If you can, don’t start a new job immediately, but take the time to sit and interact with your experience. Check out the prayer on this post and insert your own story into the lines.

This is not the end of your story. This is the end of a chapter in the story of your life, but you are ultimately not defined by this isolated experience. You are deeply loved by a God who gave you the gift of living in a place where you didn’t fit in order to change your perspective forever.

And this is not the end of the gifts He wants to give you, beloved child of the King. This is just the beginning.

What tips would you add to this list? Which ones do you think will be most challenging for you?

~~~~~~

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This post is day 30 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 29, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry {31 Days of Re-Entry}

From my journal:

March 26, 2011
“The L [elevated subway in Chicago] is going by. The windows catch the sunlight and toss it back into our apartment. The other night the sun was setting on the other side of the train and presented a light show with the beams dancing in through our kitchen as the train slowed to a stop.

Lord, I pray for freedom to live my life fully here. I still feel major guilt in leaving China and especially in being so bad about keeping up with my good friends there. My defense mechanism has been to just cut everyone off so I won’t be reminded of China. But I know that’s not healthy. Help me Jesus.

Help me to know how to allow China to stay with me and be a part of my identity and yet still live fully here in America.

Break my heart for the people all around me and give me chances to speak Truth to them. Show me how to be a missionary in my own country.

Help me to listen to your Holy Spirit and give me a greater sensitivity to Him whispering to me on the lake path, in our car on my way to work, through the aisles of the produce store, on our couch in our tiny condo and in the halls of school.

You have not changed. You are the same yesterday, today and forever. And You will be with me until the end of the age.

Lately, I feel like I’m just full of tangled up string or rubber bands–like the inside of a baseball. My emotions are so tangled that it seems impossible to bring order to them all.

Forgive me for trying to do life on my own.”

If you are in the midst of your re-entry, how would you describe your feelings? Do any word pictures come to mind?

~~~~~~

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This post is day 29 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 27, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 27: Resources for Re-Entry {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Helpful Articles on the Web (from both a Christian and secular perspective)

“A Great Fear {As Pertaining to the Story of My Life},” by Amy Young at The Messy Middle.

“Can You Survive Reverse Culture Shock,” by Amanda Kendle, Dec. 26, 2007, at Vagabondish.

“Dealing With Reverse Culture Shock,” by Tas Anjarwalla, August 24, 2010, CNN.

“Getting Past Reverse Culture Shock: My Australian Story,” by Amanda Kendle, Aug. 22, 2011, from her blog, Not a Ballerina.

“I Had No Training On How to Return Home,” by Danielle Crouch, May 5, 2015, at Velvet Ashes.

“Rediscovering Your Hometown: How to Enjoy Your Own Backyard Like a Traveler,” by Shannon Bradford, Aug 26, 2015, from Vagabondish.

“Re-Stinkin’ Entry,” by Kim Todd, May 7, 2015, at Velvet Ashes (scroll down to view 8 bloggers that linked up with their personal stories of re-entry).

“Returning Well–Looking Back, Moving Forward,” by Melissa Chaplin, May 6, 2015, at Velvet Ashes.

“7 Signs of Reverse Culture Shock and How to Deal,” by Kristi Fuoco, May 9, 2014, at The Vancouver Sun. (Has a list of books and articles at the bottom).

“You Don’t Need to Suck It Up and Get It Together,” by Michele Perry, May 3, 2015, at Velvet Ashes.

Websites:
www.rockyreentry.com
*Has a whole resources section that I won’t repeat on this page, but is very extensive

www.fixreversecultureshock.com
A site with a few stories of people experiencing reverse culture shock. It looks like the site hasn’t been updated since 2014, though.

Another 31 Days Series: Falling Forward: Thoughts and Tips on Transition.

Conferences:
Mission Training International
Some friends of mine attended this one and recommended it.

Books:

The Art of Coming Home, by Craig Storti
Check out my book review for this book here.

Burn-up or Splash Down: Surviving the Culture Shock of Re-Entry, by Marion Knell

Looming Transitions, by Amy Young

Re-Entry: Making the Transition from Missions to Life at Home, by Peter Jordan

Could you please leave some recommendations in the comments section with other resources that have been helpful for you in your re-entry? Thank you!

~~~~~~

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This post is day 27 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 26, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile {31 Days of Re-Entry}

For the purposes of this post, “exile” is wherever you find yourself that does not feel like home. This could be college in a new state, a move from the city to the suburbs (or the reverse), living in a foreign country or like me, living back in America (which “should” feel like home, but doesn’t) after living abroad.

Christians love Jeremiah 29:11 about God knowing His plans for us–to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us a hope and a future. Sounds amazing. But have you ever noticed that this verse is nestled in an entire letter written to Judah, who was in exile?

Judah was sent away into exile, leaving their homes and their land to spend 70 years in Babylon.

Who sent them away? God did.

And I would venture to say that God has sent you as well. It may not feel like home and you may not even WANT it to feel like home. At least that’s how I felt when I found myself living back in the states after five very fulfilling years of living in China. Chicago felt like exile to me.

But God had a message for his precious exiles on how to live in a place they didn’t want to be. Here’s what God told them:

Build houses and live in them (v. 5). Don’t just rent, but take the time to build, and then actually LIVE there. When I first moved to Chicago after college, I had no idea I would live in the same apartment for four years, otherwise I would have painted those walls! When have you said, “If I had known I’d have been this place this long, I would have done X?” Build a house and actually live there. Paint the walls, buy house plants, decorate, make it your home, because you really never know if you are going to be somewhere one year or seven.

Plant gardens and eat their produce (v. 5). We are currently renting our house and I have found myself resisting putting down roots–literally and figuratively–until I know where we are “settled.” But God wants me to live wherever I am living as if I were going to live there forever. I should plant that garden. Become a joiner in your community. Sign up for a weekly class or book club, join a volunteer organization, get involved at church. Commit to something that will force you to be a part of your community on a regular basis–no matter how long you plan to be there.

Take wives and become fathers of sons and daughters…multiply there and do not decrease (v. 6). Ask out the girl, my intrepid friend. Just do it. Ladies, be open to someone different than what you expect. Couples, don’t wait until you are “ready to have kids”–that day will never come. Families, befriend your neighbors. And to myself–be open to friendships even if they seem temporary because perennials and annuals alike can be breathtaking. I think God is telling Judah (and us) that they do not need to be isolated, but to live in an ever-expanding community.

Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile (v. 7). I’m sure Judah could have cared less about beautifying Babylon or contributing to the economy, but God commanded them to care. Daniel was exiled to Babylon at this time and wasn’t plotting and scheming how he could get away, but was determined to prosper in that place and be a blessing to King Nebuchadnezzar. It is so easy to build walls around ourselves and live for ourselves or our family without a second thought about our city. What can you do right now to “seek the welfare” of your city? Join a committee? Attend a neighborhood meeting? Volunteer to do community service? Donate to a cause? Sometimes we need to first make a physical investment before we become emotionally invested in a place.

Pray to the Lord on its behalf (v. 7). We are to pray for our city. I confess that I seldom pray for mine. It can just seem like too large of an order to give to God. But I forget that prayer has so many side benefits and that in praying for a person or a place, I am the one who often changes. I grow in compassion and powers of observation. I start to care. I feel more rooted because I am invested in where I am on more than just a surface level.

It is after all of these commands, that we finally find our favorite verse, Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you [for you to learn from this new experience]
Plans to prosper you and not to harm you [this is for your good]
Plans to give you a hope and a future. [this is not the end of your story]

God sent you where you are and wants to see you prosper in THAT place. You do not always control the where, but you can control your attitude toward that place.

Finally, this is not in Jeremiah, but has been a mantra of mine since moving back to the states that applies to these principles. Isaiah 37: 31 says that we are to “take root downward and bear fruit upward.” How long we are allowed to grow those roots downward should have no bearing on our trying to put them down. That is God’s concern. Our job is to be faithful to glorify Him wherever He has sent us and bear the fruit of the Spirit in that place for as long as God has us there.

May today there be peace within
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God…
Let this presence settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

~St. Theresa

What is your “place of exile”? How can you put down roots in that place? Will you commit to praying for your city?

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This post is day 26 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:

Linking up with The Grove at Velvet Ashes and Count My Blessings.
a href=”http://velvetashes.com” title=”Velvet Ashes: encouragement for women serving overseas”>

October 22, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless {31 Days of Re-Entry}

It turns out that space travel is a perfect metaphor for living in another country. (Though you may feel more like the alien than the astronaut). You adjust to giving up control, eat strange food and do daily tasks in new and awkward ways. Even common routines like using the bathroom require adjustments. But adjust you must if you want to thrive in this new atmosphere.

Suddenly being weightless is your new normal. But soon, whether it was scheduled or an emergency landing, your term is up and you are braving the dangers of re-entry to a planet that is no longer home.

So why don’t you feel grounded now that you have gravity?

These are a couple journal entries written after I returned to America from spending five years in China. They are a glimpse into how disoriented I still felt even nine months after my initial re-entry.

April 9, 2011
“I feel like I was driving at full speed in one direction and the Lord yanked the wheel and u-turned me back the other way. It’s hard to adjust when you had one destination in mind all along and suddenly the Lord brings you back to the point of origin–only five years have elapsed since you left.

Lord, please show me how to pour myself out for you here and now. I still feel awkward at church and around new people because I’m not quite sure of who I am anymore and struggle to relate. Help me, Lord. I give you my pride, negativity, sense of guilt, heaviness and apathy. Revive my spirit, Lord. Remind me who I am in You.”

April 27, 2011
“Upset, though I’m not sure of the exact cause–just feeling groundless, weightless, homeless…unsure of the future and of my role or purpose in the present. Confused. Not just lost, but lost without a map, lost without a compass. Unsure of my footing. Not fear of going the wrong direction, but the existential fear that all this traveling will bring me no where. That it is all futile. Trying to hold on to the promises of Psalm 16: 8-11. Trying to be in His presence.”

“I have set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will
dwell securely.

For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol;

Neither will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay.

You will make known to me the path of life;

In Your presence is fullness of joy;

In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

Over four years after writing this–even including two job changes, a cross-country move and the addition of two children–I can say that the Lord has not allowed me to be shaken. When my house is built on Him as my rock instead of on the sand of my idols, I can dwell securely. Though I still struggle with my foothold at times, He has helped me to reorient back to this country, though I struggle day by day to stay firmly planted on Him first, and on people and places second.

~~~~~~

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This post is day 22 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:

Photo: “Earth (17310307593)” by Kevin Gill from Nashua, NH, United States – Earth. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_(17310307593).jpg#/media/File:Earth_(17310307593).jpg

October 21, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind {31 Days of Re-Entry}

“We came, we saw, we took away and we left behind, we must be allowed our anguish and our regrets.”

Adah in The Poisonwood Bible, p. 483

What have I taken away from China?

I have taken some seedlings of customs and routines from China and attempted to transplant them into the soil of my life in America. Some have taken root and some have shriveled because the soil is just not conducive to that sort of seed.

I had grown accustomed to cooking Chinese food at every meal when I lived in China just because it was so inconvenient to make western food. Now that I don’t have easy access to Chinese ingredients, I have gone back to more predictable culinary exploits such as meatloaf and spaghetti.

I have carried back a respect for rest and family. I feel less guilty sitting down with a book and cup of tea for 20 minutes a day than I did before going to China. I also now value proximity to family more than I once did, not having had that for five years and seeing how much my Chinese friends valued their family relationships.

I am better with ambiguity than I once was. Being on buses that would stop for hours at a time with no explanation, having classes cancelled last minute for tree planting and being essentially illiterate my first three years in China, I grew accustomed to living with less information. I value this new-found flexibility and ability to find humor in the absurd.

What did I leave behind in China?

As it turned out, China was the conclusion to my Singleness Chapter in life, so I left behind long runs in the wilderness, staying up until 3 am binge-watching TV, two hour long quiet times with Jesus, having visitors stop by at the last minute and staying through dinner and traveling all over China during school holidays.

I left behind my pre-marriage, pre-children self that sometimes seems more confident, adventurous and faithful than I am now.

But what I mourn the most are the friends-become-family I left behind–the ones who became my sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and grandparents because I was alone and needed family. In their great value for family, they pitied the foreigner and, like Jesus, invited me in (to share their home), gave me something to eat (homemade noodles and dumplings), something to drink (tea) and something to wear (appropriate long underwear). Even though most of them didn’t know Him, they were Jesus to me. They were His hands and feet. They were my family.

“…we must be allowed our anguish and our regrets.”

If I allow it, the anguish I feel about leaving these relationships can be debilitating and the regrets I have about not keeping in touch with them can overtake me. But, unlike Adah, I trust in a God with a grander story. He is not disappointed in me for not keeping in touch with friends 10,000 miles away, nor is He dependent on me to keep watering the seeds that were sown in the hearts of friends who did not yet know Christ. He allowed me a glimpse of what it will be like to worship with the nations, which is something I will carry with me until I see many of them again in eternity. And that can never be left behind.

If you have moved, what have you taken with you and what have you left behind?

~~~~~~

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This post is day 21 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 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:

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October 17, 2015January 23, 2018

Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”? {31 Days of Re-Entry}

During one of my trips back to America while I was living in China, I remember bemoaning to a mentor of mine about being single. She comforted me with the statement, “You have a higher calling.”

You mean I have a more important call than my friend living back in America with three kids? I thought.

“You have a higher calling.”

“You are DOING IT–you are going!”

“Be radical and sold out for Jesus!”

“Do big things for God.”

“I could never do what you do.”

“God has called YOU!”

It is statements like these that make it so difficult to return from the mission field to the humdrum life where you blend in with everyone else–and instead pursue a “lower calling.”

Growing up in the church, youth group, summer camps and Christian college, I had never really noticed these appeals to our pride until a few years ago. Our first year of marriage, my husband and I led a team of college students back to China with the organization I had been with. We had a week of training, complete with all the inspiring sermons, small groups, emotional praise and worship, prayer and individual devotionals I had been used to all my life. Not having grown up in the church, my husband would point out aspects of the messages I had never noticed before and how missions was made out to be the end-all, the only option for any Christian who was truly “sold out for Christ.”

An actor by trade, he actually saw many parallels between this group and all his acting teachers, who also considered the art to be a “calling.”

I was called to missions, but my husband was called to acting. Doctors feel called to save people. Artists are called to their particular art form–to dance, paint, sing, sculpt, compose or photograph. And the expectation is that you are either all in, or you are a sell out. Calling is not just a Christian term, it is a human term for people who are searching for purpose and meaning in life.

A quick Google search will lead you to articles such as: “10 Ways to Determine God’s Calling in Your Life,” “Find Your Calling: 5 Steps to Identify Your Purpose,” “4 Steps to Finding Your Calling,” “10 Signs you Found Your Calling,” and “Oprah On Finding Your Calling–What I Know for Sure.” It is not just Christians who want to make a difference in the world.

In February of 2015, in an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “I Don’t Have a Job. I Have a Higher Calling,” one researcher noted that “those who can connect their work to a higher purpose—whether they are a janitor or a banker—tend to be more satisfied with their jobs, put in longer hours and rack up fewer absences.” God has put eternity in the hearts of man (Eccl. 3:11) and placed a desire to live for something or someone greater than ourselves within each of us.

The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren, has sold over 32 million copies world-wide for a reason. We want to have purpose. “What is your calling?” is a common question in Bible studies and small groups that assumes that each person has a unique and purposeful calling from God, though the “call to missions” seems to be the golden badge while the others are silver and copper.

Karen Yates puts it like this in her article “Your Calling is Closer Than You Think,” “We have an expectation that our calling is discoverable. It’s the gold nugget buried within the river bank. Search for it, be patient, don’t give up, we’ll find it (or stumble upon it) one day, eventually, and our lives will never be the same.”

When I answered the call to missions, I thought that it was an “all-in or all-out” situation. I felt sure God wouldn’t call me to do something halfway, so I threw myself completely into my work overseas. As mentioned in previous posts, God’s will for me turned out to be very different than I’d planned and I was heartbroken when I began to realize that I was going to have to be in the “all-out” camp of “less-than” Christians.

Missions, as it turns out, was a call on my life, but not the call. My call was first and foremost to intimacy with Jesus Christ.

I had left my first love to serve at the altar of my usefulness and worshipped what I could do for Christ rather than what He had already done for me. I had made my call to missions my idol, tightly winding my identity all around it, so that when I returned home I unraveled. I had no idea who I was anymore if I wasn’t “Someone’s friend or sister or daughter who is giving up everything to serve God in China.” I was just me again–Leslie without the “higher calling.” Leslie who lives in Chicago. Leslie the teacher. Leslie the wife.”

Like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, my calling had become my precious ring I clung to for security and significance. It took leaving, getting married and reentering American life to pry my fingers off of what had started out good, but had slowly become something I worshipped. God had always only wanted me to hold it with open hands.

Karen Yates remarks, “The problem I see with that over-used, over-emphasized, over-preached word “calling” is that many of us have limited the definition of “calling” to a profession, a career or a role. In this view, calling is about what we do, not about who we are. Calling becomes about assignment—my calling to be a mother, or a psychologist, or a missionary, or a teacher; my “calling” to “go into ministry” or “go on the mission field.” And then when our children walk out the door, when we lose our jobs, when our spouses suddenly die, when the funding doesn’t come in, when we become desensitized with our workplace, or when we simply grow old and hunched over, what then? Where is our calling?” (Yates, “Your Calling is Closer than You Think”)

I do still believe God calls us to specific work at specific times. Sometimes it is through a burning bush moment, but often it is walking through one open door in obedience, then the next, then the next until we find that we are somewhere very different than where we started. And I do think that telling the nations about Christ is a privilege and a joy that is very different from other callings. But we need to be careful with the superlatives, lest we throw ourselves wholeheartedly at the altar of our call instead of at the altar of our Savior.

What other phrases does the church use to inspire us to go instead of remind us who we are in Christ? Have you ever struggled with this issue of calling? What have you learned over the years?

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“Your Calling is Closer than You Think,” by Karen Yates, Relevant Magazine, May 28, 2013.

“The Idolatry of Missions,” by Jonathan Trotter, A Life Overseas, Nov. 9, 2014.

“Farewell to the Missionary Hero,” by Amy Peterson, Christianity Today, Sept. 14, 2015.

“I Don’t Have a Job. I Have a Calling.” by Rachel Feintzeig, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 24, 2015.

This post is day 17 of the series “Re-entry: Reflections on Reverse Culture Shock,” a challenge I have taken to write for 31 days during the month of October. Check out my other posts in this series:

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October 15, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 15: Book Review–The Art of Coming Home {31 Days of Re-Entry}

The Art of Coming Home, by Craig Storti, is an excellent book about re-entry that my organization mailed to me when I returned to America after spending five years in China. I wish I had read it.

The book is divided into five main sections: coming home, the stages of re-entry, the return of the employee, the return of spouses and children, and special populations. As I was a single person when I “re-entered” my passport country, I could relate most to the first two sections of the book.

Though he does not discuss it in the book, Storti experienced living abroad and returning first hand, which grants him credibility as a writer. It is also obvious that he researched extensively for this book, as is evidenced by a vast bibliography, and I found myself starring and underlining items on at least every page.

Though Storti remains objective throughout the book, he has an obvious sensitivity to the struggle that many expats encounter when they return to their passport culture (and encouragement that they will survive and make it through in the end!).

In his first chapter on coming home, Storti states, “this very realization, that home is really not home, is at the core of the experience of reentry” (4). He aptly spells out some of the main issues for the returning expat such as wrestling with the meaning of home, what makes it difficult to come home and the impact the return has on us and our relationships.

Storti defines the stages of reentry as: leave-taking, honeymoon, reverse culture shock and readjustment. His description of reverse culture shock is so familiar to me as he speaks about being judgmental, living in the margins as a “cultural hybrid”(54), doubting your decision to return, feeling overwhelmed, and resisting readjusting. “It’s almost as if readjusting would mean that your expatriate experience never happened, that you would revert to the person you were before you went abroad” (58).

Chapter three outlines some of the issues related to reentering the work place and offers practical helps to reintegrate the employee into the work environment. Colleagues trying to identify with what their coworkers or employees are experiencing as they return to work from another country would benefit greatly from reading this chapter. In one of the many helpful charts provided throughout the book, Storti provides 9 questions that are “recommended content for a repatriation workshop,” such as:
1. “What did you like about being overseas and what will you miss the most?
2. Who are you now? How has the overseas experience changed you? What new skills, knowledge, attitudes have you acquired?
3. How has home changed? What the country is like now…” (88)

In Chapter four, Storti discusses some common issues of the returning spouse, such as returning to work, going back home alone at first, having less house help, adjusting to a more independent (less social?) culture, helping the children, spending less time together as a family, and guilt over children going through reentry. The second half of this chapter focuses primarily on the issues that teens may face in reentering after spending time abroad and what parents can do to help them to weather this storm.

The final chapter, on special populations, addresses the problems of these particular subgroups of returning expats: exchange students, international volunteer organizations, military personnel and missionaries. This is the only part of the book that seems to be a bit redundant as the issues and solutions are very similar to those described in chapter one and two, but it is possible that someone in one of these specific categories may find a different angle that is applicable to their unique situation.

The Art of Coming Home is a valuable resource for anyone returning from living abroad. I know that I would have benefitted greatly from it had I taken advantage of reading it before returning to America.

“Readjustment is the final phase of reentry, but it should not be understood as the closing of the book on the overseas experience, for in a larger sense, reentry never truly ends. After all, people don’t actually get over experiences, especially profound ones; instead they incorporate them into their character and personality and respond to all subsequent experience from the perspective of their new self” (65).

YES.

~~~~~~

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This post is day 15 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: reverse culture shock

Day 31: A Blessing {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 30: 12 Survival Tips for Re-Entry {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 29: Journal: 8 Months After Re-Entry {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 27: Resources for Re-Entry {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 26: In the Place of Your Exile {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 22: Groundless, Weightless, Homeless {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Day 21: What I Took and What I Left Behind {31 Days of Re-Entry}

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

Day 17: Is Missions a “Higher Calling”? {31 Days of Re-Entry}

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Day 15: Book Review–The Art of Coming Home {31 Days of Re-Entry}

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