reverse culture shock

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:

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)

Picture: “Handful of tools (1904 advertisement)” by Unknown – http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1904-01-02/ed-1/seq-4/ (Tacoma Times). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Handful_of_tools_(1904_advertisement).jpg#/media/File:Handful_of_tools_(1904_advertisement).jpg

October 13, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 13: Longing for Home {31 Days of Re-entry}

This is the painting I chose to hang in my bedroom when my parents moved houses during my freshman year of college. That was 18 years ago and since then I have moved my possessions 11 times, living in 3 different countries, 2 different states and 6 different cities. Each time I would return to my parent’s house, I would study that painting and imagine I was the girl in the pink dress, wondering how to get home.

In her, I found a kindred spirit and someone who looked as homeless as I felt.

She always seemed to be longing for something more, but never finding the strength to get there. Many Jim and Elisabeth quotes get tossed around, but one of their quotes from a letter written before they were married made an impression on me: “Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.”

When I was in college, I longed to know which roads I would take–which job I would end up doing and in which city. Who I would befriend and if/when I would get married.

After college in the thick of teaching public school in Chicago, I wondered if life would always be like this. Would I ever meet someone? Have a family? Go overseas like I had always wanted?

When I was finally in China, I longed for a partner and someone to be my “constant” in a world that was ever changing. I yearned for that man and hoped for a family of my own. I wanted to make a difference in a country that makes up one fifth of the world’s population. And yet I still longed for America and the familiar.

And after returning from China, getting married and having children, I now long for a meaningful life. I hope our family can live counter-culturally and stand out from the seemingly homogenous culture that is now our “home.”

Longing.

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.

On a run one dreary spring day in Chicago before leaving for China, I ran under the elevated train (El) tracks that were stained, rusted and tagged with graffiti. There was a railing that ran parallel underneath and in it someone had planted a tiny garden that pierced the day with its cheerfulness. Even though you are miserable because of the cloudy days, the crowded streets and the lonely commutes home, you can grow here, God seemed to say.

Many years later, on another run, this time in China, I passed a dried up field in the outskirts of the city which had become a dumping ground for trash and refuse. I had a holy moment when I noticed a single yellow flower bursting through the sad field, thriving in spite of its environment. You can grow anywhere, God seemed to be saying to me.

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.

I believe humans will always long for more. We long to know the future and to make a difference. We long for love, community, belonging, peace, healthy challenges, beauty and meaning. This is not just true to the Christian experience, it is true to the human experience.

But the Christian takes the longing one step further by naming our hope and defining our longing for an eternal home.

Yes, there is a place for contentment, being thankful and having a grateful heart, but some degree of longing is appropriate and reminds us that we are out of place here. We are a garden in a concrete jungle and a flower in the wilderness. Our longing is good, but it is temporary. And in the meantime, we are to beautify our surroundings–wherever God places us.

(For practical ways I’m trying to do this, check out Readjusting: Same Tools, New Work Space)

~~~~~~

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This post is day 13 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)

Linking up with #WholeMama

Painting: “Christina’s World,” by Andrew Wyeth (American), 1948.

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 9, 2015January 13, 2017

Day 9: Caring for Your Dorothy {31 Days of Re-Entry}

Dorothy must have experienced some serious reverse culture shock, in spite of the fact that all she wanted was to leave Oz. I wonder how Auntie Em and Uncle Henry cared for her? Did they acknowledge her experience, or just try to urge her to move on with life as usual?

Maybe you were like Dorothy, clicking your sparkly heels, chanting, “There’s no place like home.” Or maybe you were like me, kicking and hurling myself on the ground like a toddler throwing a tantrum because I want to STAY! I have heard that it is easier to return if you were truly ready to do so, but that it is much more difficult if you were thriving abroad and had to come home. Pretty logical.

But this post is more for the Auntie Em’s and Uncle Henry’s than for us Dorothy’s.

One of the main aspects of re-entry is grieving, so it makes sense that you would care for your Dorothy as you would care for someone who is grieving.

5 Ways to Care for your Dorothy

1. Listen
Listen to our stories, look at our pictures and try and understand what life was like for us. Listen when we need to talk about how much we miss our old life even if it means the same conversation over and over and over again. I just kept waiting for the day my then-fiancé would roll his eyes and say, “But we already talked about this a million times!” But he never did.

2. Ask
Ask us how we’re doing–and keep asking. Just as a grieving person does not forget the person who died after a day, week, month or year, neither have we forgotten our old life. Just because we may stop talking about it doesn’t mean we aren’t still thinking about it. We just think you may be sick of hearing about it (as you may be). But please keep asking. When you do, this brings emotional healing and is a salve to our souls. A simple, “How are you doing with re-entry?” is a good question to ask every few weeks.

3. Give us time
There is no time limit on re-entry. Five years later, I STILL struggle from time to time. It takes much longer than you think it should, but hold on because we WILL reemerge from having our bodies in Kansas and our heads in Oz. Eventually.

4. Give us grace
We are re-learning how to function in a society that has moved forward while we have been moving in a different direction. We may not be up on current events, media, technology, and pop culture, so help us out. Watch our faces carefully to see if we are following and gently enlighten us if we seem confused. We want to re-engage, we just don’t know how yet.

5. Pray
Pray for us and with us. Sometimes all we really need and want is for you to say, “Can I pray for you?” You don’t have to have the magic words or even have a long prayer, but just entering God’s presence together helps remind us that this struggle is temporary, but that we serve an eternal God who transcends time, culture and emotional confusion.

What would you add to this list? How have your friends and family cared for you as you have negotiated the waves of re-entry?

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This post is day 9 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: By Warner Bros. (1949 re-issue trailer. See: TCM Movie Database) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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:

October 4, 2015January 13, 2017

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:

Category: reverse culture shock

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

Day 13: Longing for Home {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 9: Caring for Your Dorothy {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}

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

Welcome to Scraping Raisins!