Re entry is going to kick my butt.
And by that I mean I am currently living in a World Race subculture and I’m not quite sure how well I’ll assimilate back into America. For the past year, I’ve been living in a culture of people who left their lives in America (and Canada…and The Netherlands) to join together in pursuit of sharing the gospel with the nations. We live out of backpacks, invade people’s homes, eat strange foods, use stranger toilets and stuff more people in modes of transportation than clowns ever could.
And this is only the beginning.
On any given day it is a completely normal occurrence to:
-have my picture taken by complete strangers
-be asked for my autograph
-play charades with someone who doesn’t speak my language
-eat something off the ground
-play dumb when asked to pay money to use the toilet
-eat something of which I can’t even pronounce the name
-live some place where I can’t even pronounce the name
-drink water out of a trashcan type container
-bargain shop at the market
-find a roll of toilet paper in my purse or coat pocket
-have over ten DIFFERENT currencies in my wallet
-shower in the rain or at the local village watering hole
-have only the sun or my head lamp as a source of light
-forget if I’m practicing for my Cirque du Soleil audition or using a foreign toilet and/or shower
-push start transportation Little Miss Sunshine style
-talk about bodily functions at the dinner table (and everywhere else for that matter)
-not have normal bodily functions
-give my clothes the ol “sniff test” before deciding what to wear
-sleep in airports, train stations, bus stations and pretty much anywhere else
-pull hair out of my food and continue eating
-burst into song in public places complete with guitars, ukuleles, mandolins and bongo drums
-travel for 50+ hours at a time
-pair Chacos with a cotton skirt and call it “gettin fancy”
-consider a bush, a hole in the ground, the side of the road, or a Pringles can a toilet
-refer to time in countries and continents rather than months and seasons
And if that’s not enough, let me tell you this: if you ask for prayer I’ll most likely lay hands and pray right then and there. Someone else is praying? I’ll be the girl shouting “Amen!” and “Yes, LORD!” Worship? Yes. Don’t be concerned if you hear me singing at the top of my lungs with my iPod and headphones or see me laid out across my floor. Just a little Jesus time. I’ll be talking to complete strangers and probably offer them whatever I have in my pockets. I’ll open up my home and give away food. I’ll put your needs ABOVE my own. I’ll be the one finding the Kingdom in the ordinary moments.
I know… Not normal American culture. This is just the Jesus in me.
So I might be a little bit of a freak, but I’m ok with that. I’ve never been a fan of normal anyway.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ ” -Jack Kerouac, ‘On the Road’
