You can read all the blogs you want or fill out the worksheet and do the personality test, but to be honest you are your own person and no one is like you. AIM does their best to prepare people for the oddity of returning to America. Side not – I find it funny how much they stress not having expectations but then recite a speech about what you should expect when reentering America. Using words like "you are likely to" doesn't make it not an expectation, it is just not using the word. Sorry. But truthfully you are going to have a totally separate and unique experience than anyone else. What you come home to, who you come home to and where home ends up being is different than anyone else. I can't write a blog explaining how to adjust to America or about what things will shock you. I can't even begin to predict what you will be thinking or feeling. But my experience can be expressed and maybe even be humorous or helpful; we shall find out.
In the event that you are fortunate enough to spend a year living directly and very closely to people, you can't help but form a family like bond with at least someone. It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. (Yes I used this in my last blog, but it fits.) We simply are designed to love others. When you literally do life along side such few people for a year, you see it all and learn unconditional love. So to even describe to you the level of emotion I have for my sisters whom I left in NYC is beyond describable. I don't wish mourning upon anyone but I pray each of you has the opportunity to love people the way I have this year even if it has a predetermined end.
A tip for those gentlemen who are going on the race and decide to do something like not shave or cut your hair. When returning to America you can expect to be overcome by emotions you may not normally express. This is a good thing, it means you are human and you care for people. However if you end up alone on the subway or simply sitting alone in an American airport looking like a devout Muslim with the full beard and a huge pack, crying to yourself, you tend to draw a lot of attention. The good news is it makes for a great conversation starter.
Well, I have been in America for a short time and I'm not sure my mind has really grasped the concept of what has happened even yet. I certainly wouldn't trade this year for anything and I probably wouldn't choose it again. As crazy as the lifestyle was this year I had come to find comfort in it and peace in the overly complicated simplicity. This world I'm in now is so beyond foreign and strange which is odd because we spent the last year going to the foreign and uniquely different places yet the place I have spent 22 years is unnatural and awkward. I am uncomfortable here and I have been for years. I have been saying since high school I don't fit in here, I don't belong here. When the world race fell into my lap I thought this was going to be the cure for the feeling of dissonance I have had for years, but it turns out it was only a temporary solution to a bigger calling. I don't have my life figured out or even planned out, but I know my heart has always been for SE Asia which is where I feel most "at home."
To leave my family and my friends and everything I know here is a mentally taxing notion, but I view it as a choice to remove the distractions of this western world and go to a place were my sacrifice is unnoticed so as to not draw attention to myself as if I were better than anyone and serve God above all things. Though Asia has many distractions of its own, my home is not based on people or things, nor is it based on geographical location. We call this world home, however our home is in the presence of God, in His heaven. And if we are to truly believe heaven on earth is possible we need to not be attached to this world. I am content wherever I am because wherever I am, I am with Him; a fact I know above almost all others. We are not meant to live simple lives, but we are meant to live obediently. The part which makes this western world weird for me is people think simple is some poverty minded, spiritually perverse existence and compensate by over complicating and causing distraction in their life to fill a spot which God designed for Himself and we destroyed with materialism. My choice for a simple life is not to simply live easier, it is to reach people who don't notice a difference in my lifestyle, unlike here where it is a statement and see me as an equal creation of the one true God with a life of hope and joy to be desired. I choose to continue my life along side people whom need Christ, notice the need for something better and are willing to sacrifice out of lack to know God.
Example – Fasting was not designed for people to prove there spiritual greatness by some ritualistic practice. Fasting was designed with the idea that you remove something you depend on in order to depend on God in place of such thing and to seek Him in all those instances which you would seek the thing being fasted. Nor was fasting to be proclaimed or performed in a way to draw attention to ones self so as to keep one from being prideful in their acts. Here in the west a sacrificial life, a life of less draws attention and is associated with people groups making statements, which generally are not Christ based or focused on any sort of Kingdom belief. This is why in a place like most of SE Asia, a life of less makes me equal with these people which allows me to become accepted and a part of their community more wholly.
I like nice things and being comfortable. I like people and I love my family. For too many years I made my life what I wanted it to be. I held on to possessions and money and made idols out of many different materialistic things. Then one day my life had to change and slowly God taught me how to hand those things over to Him because they were ultimately His to begin with. I have finally found peace in lifestyle where I no longer hold on and know all things are His, except for one. I don't posses anything in this life that would destroy me to lose, except one thing. As someone once described it, there isn't anything I could lose which would give me a reason to not want to live anymore. I like nice things, but they aren't important. I love my family, but they aren't mine, they are my Fathers. I would be distraught if I lost my family which is silly because if they die, their lives get infinitely better by going to heaven which is reason to be nothing but joyful.
But the one thing I have held on to for 23 years is my life, not the things in it or the adventures experienced but the simple act of living. Me being alive is something I have not been able to hand over to God yet; I want to. I want to hand over this last part of me and know that in forfeiting my presumed "right" to live, God will use my life in majestic ways to Glorify His name and fortify His kingdom here on earth. I believe I have come to the place where I know I will let this last thing go and the only reason I haven't yet is because I don't think I have been in a situation where I had to make the choice between being alive or proclaiming Christ into my death. To be martyred is my twisted life dream and before this year, really before last week after returning to America, I think my willingness for martyrdom always had limits and/or conditions. Maybe this is crazy but being back in America made it easier to realize my limits and conditions will eventually become a road block in my obedience to God. Being back in America I can't help but have this feeling of extreme luxury; I mean what part of this life is any sort of sacrifice and even the sacrifices made are not usually with a kingdom dream in mind. I find more in less.
I've been happy, sad, lonely, annoyed, displeased, disgusted, uncomfortable, overjoyed, overfed, overwhelmed, tired, mournful, lost, nostalgic, sentimental, wanting, waiting, wishing, angry, hurried, amazed, wondered, sickened, unnoticed, unseen, independent, incoherent, impatient, impulsive, imperfect, confused, contempt, and content in these 10 days in America. This doesn't give anyone answers on how to deal with their own reentry or how to help someone else with their reentry, it's simply a story ending a journey.
