In two days, I start the trek back to America.
In three days, I will be hugging my parents.
In seven days, I will be laying in my own bed for the first time in a year.
Trying to explain what any of that feels like to you would be pointless. The feelings are so jumbled and heavy and move so quickly that there are no words strung together to capture it.
Happy? Sad? Excited? Nervous?
They all seem too simple. Too clean cut. Too black & white.
It feels like watching the sunset over the ocean. It’s absolutely beautiful to look at, and really remarkable to watch the sun descend as if it’s plunging straight into the water. Then it gets to that point where you can barely see a sliver of the sun above the water’s edge, and everything in you is screaming “Wait! Not yet! Stay here a bit longer!” But at the same time, it’s so peaceful to watch that you’re kind of okay with it…because once the sun sets, it means you get to stare at the stars over the ocean, which is equally as beautiful (maybe even more beautiful, sometimes).
The people I’ve met, the places I’ve lived, the squad that I am coming home with in just a few days: they are the sun setting over the ocean of my life right now. The mental picture of it all (and the actual pictures, thank God) – of all of the airports we’ve slept in, all of the roads we’ve walked down, all of the markets I’ve bartered in, and all the hands we’ve held and people we’ve laughed and cried with – it’s sinking faster and faster into the water.
As we sit around and laugh together at debrief, as we talk about the things we’ve learned and reminisce on our time in so many different places – I find myself screaming “Not yet! Stay a bit longer!” because, plain and simple, it’s hard.
Pieces of our hearts are scattered in so many places around the world, and soon they’ll scatter across the states as we all return to our respective homes. Pieces of our hearts are in the hands of orphans in the Philippines, prostitutes in Thailand, and teachers in Swaziland. There are college students in Vietnam who hold pieces of our hearts, pastors in Moldova and Romania who keep them as well.
I walk through our hostel or I look around a conference room, and I see faces who understand and know deeply where the pieces of my heart are – because their hearts are with them, too. That’s a really beautiful thing to know, and it’s what keeps me staring at the sun about to plunge under the horizon, asking it to stand still for a little bit longer. I know it won’t, and I know it can’t, but I also know there’s more beauty ahead as we all scatter among the States.
We’ll scatter to teach. We’ll scatter to preach. We’ll scatter to mentor, to lead, and to serve.
We’ll scatter to wait tables. We’ll scatter to do yard work. We’ll scatter to take our seats back in a classroom.
V Squad is coming home, America, but we’re not the same V Squad you said goodbye to last September.
We have a few more stamps in our passports that we’ll probably show off, but those passports aren’t the only things that were stamped and changed this year.
Our eyes have been stamped with the reality of hunger, abuse, disease, poverty, and addiction.They have been stamped more permanently still with the reality of provision, strength, healing, hope, and freedom.
Our hearts have been stamped with the faces of men, women, and children, and the burden of the stories behind them.They have been stamped with the responsibility of sharing those stories. They have been stamped with a deeper knowledge of how to live out the story of God.
Our lives have been forever stamped by a 327 day journey that took us through 20+ countries, 3 continents, 14 currencies and countless bus rides.
It has changed us for good, and it has changed us for the better.
So here we come, America.
We hope you’re ready.
We hope we’re ready.
