Yup so here I am, back in America. Not quite home yet, but I’m back to the land where flushing toilet paper is not only acceptable, but encouraged. I can drink out of the faucet, but I still catch myself hesitating because I’m worried about potential parasites. Yesterday at a Chinese restaurant I had to stop myself from asking where the bathroom was by saying, “Toil-let?” They speak English here, Madisson, you don’t have to speak slow or pronounce words with ridiculous accents. My new phrase is, “sorry just learning English here.” I honestly have to roll words around in my mouth because I’m not sure if I’m saying them right
I’m so excited that people can speak my language that I just keep talking because I can and it’s not the same people that already know all my life. I’m shocked by the African women standing behind me in line speaking not just English, but fluent English. Food has become frustrating, how am I supposed to live on $3 a day any more when a simple sandwich costs $3 itself! Biggest culture shock yet was in the mall food court where I walked around for 30 minutes trying to figure out what I wanted to eat and would actually spend money on. I ended up paying $7 for 12 pieces of sushi…it was a good choice.
My first week back has been quite the adventure as well. I got off the plane and spent the night in LA with 3 girls from my squad. We walked outside and were hit with 75 degree weather…hello freezing! We all reached for sweaters and shivered. We headed to an amazing hotel with the fluffiest cloud bed ever, went to Target and browsed the selection of clothing made for people like us. Then the whole food court situation happened and we headed back to pass out. At 5 AM we woke up, then Kaitlyn and I spent the morning driving down Santa Monica and Hollywood Blvd. We saw the Hollywood sign and chased it down. We had breakfast at a little dinner, REAL doughnuts and bagels with REAL cream cheese! Heaven. Kaitlyn dropped me off and I hopped on a train for San Fran.
I’d been praying that morning that God would show me how the last 11 months was supposed to carry over to America because I didn’t want to be a waste and I didn’t want to forget it. I sat next to this guy on the train named Jeremy and we started talking. He was 19 heading to see his girl friend. We talked about school and life and what not, and then he started sharing about his life. He was struggling with a lot at home with divorce and siblings. So we talked about it all for a while, then I asked to pray over him. I held his hand and just prayed that Jesus would show His glory and His love. After I finished, he nuzzled his head in my shoulder and gave me a huge hug and thanked me. It was precious. Then I got to spend another hour and a half riding with him. Once he was gone, I slept on the now bus for the next 5 hours.
Being in San Fran has been awesome. Getting to see old friends and be weird with them is such a blessing. I’ve also gotten to meet the new city hosts here and they’ve asked so many questions and shared their lives with me as well. My second full day back in America I was back to work. I led a prayer tour through the city of San Francisco and my heart began to tear apart. My heart never broke overseas for the people like it did while I was leading this tour and I remembered my heart for urban ministry. It physically hurt how sad I was for the people of the city and it scared me how much I felt for them.
The week was amazing with my group. I had ½ middle school, ½ high school students that I led. I was excited to share not only the city but Jesus with them, to share with them the power of prayer. And they surprised me with the positive attitudes they kept all week when I would expect whining and pouting. They were champs. They were a blessing. I also had an amazing co-host for the week. We clicked immediately and laughed all week and shared overseas experiences. It was another blessing from God because my co-host wanted to talk about what I had just done for the last 11 months and I wanted to talk about it too.
My supervisors here have been amazing to me too because they are more my friends than supervisors and they are such an encouragement to what I have done. They’ve talked to me a lot about my anxieties about going home and what is expected of me when I return. God has blessed me with a lot of opportunities to verbally process what has just happened and what is about to happen. But now I’m stuck…
I’m about to head home, somewhere that I’ve been dying to get back to and yet my heart is torn. I don’t know what is ahead of me. It’s a lot a bit scary and I’m a lot a bit terrified. My transition back to America has been smooth so far, but I’ve also been surrounded by a lot of people and haven’t had to sit and thoroughly process everything. I’m waiting for the moment I melt down and roll around on the ground in my underwear while stuffing myself with chocolate. I feel like it’s coming any moment and I don’t know if it’s because I know I’m going home to a lack of community or because I’m going back to the “real” world where I have to think about grown up things like bills. Please be praying for me. I know that God knows what He has in store for me and that He has plans already laid out, but I’m in a terrifying place right now. But God is good, He is always good, even when I don’t understand it, God is good and He is bringing me home to my family. Can’t wait to celebrate with them all the good things He has done this past year.
