As I write this post I sit in a Starbucks, with air conditioner, and on both sides sitting beside me are Americans. In my mind it can very easily feel like I am back home sitting in an American Starbucks living the life I was living this time last year. The matter of it is though is I am not in America right now. I am in Vietnam, which in a way reminds me a lot of America.
While I love being in a Starbucks and being in a city that has more in it than my home town of Knoxville, Tennessee, it is a lot more difficult to be away from home when surrounded by these things. It warps your mind into feeling as if it is at home. but your heart knows it’s not at home. It knows your family isn’t right down the road and no matter how many Starbucks you go into, you still don’t work there right now.
This life can easily be mistaken by any bystander that I am just visiting here from home on holiday, but that isn’t what I signed up for is it? I at times also easily get confused with why I am truly here, because sometimes the circumstances aren’t always what you would assume them to be. Yeah there have been nights I have had to sleep on a straw mat in the living room of an African family with 9 other girls. There have been 56 hour bus rides that I truly never knew when I would be getting off the bus. Truthfully though there are also moments I am sitting on a beach in Vietnam drinking fresh coconut water out of a coconut. There are moments that I am able to Instagram what looks like a vacation rather than an overseas mission trip.
In all of this though I know it must be difficult for a lot of people back home to fully understand what I am doing. Those back home only really get to see what I post online and probably only get to talk to me when I am sitting in a cafe where is the only place you can find wifi to call. It is difficult to see the fruit from what I am doing being many miles away from home, but I promise you that it is there.
I get to see the smiles of children who just want someone to show them love and we may be all the love they get for the time being of us being there. I get to sit around people who have lived in these countries since they were born and live as they live with them for a short time. I get to meet people who I would have never met had I not said ‘yes’ to this trip.
This year is honestly a year I will never be able to recreate at any point in my life. These opportunities I have had to serve 11 different countries I am so thankful for and am excited that I can say I still have 5 months left to do this. I am also thankful though for the off days and the weekends where my team and I are also able to enjoy the things that the country has to offer.
