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home |hōm|
noun
1 the place where one lives permanently, esp. as a member of a family or household

Home.

 
What does that word even mean anymore? When I’m overseas, I refer to my family’s place of residence in Michigan as “home.”  Even when I lived near Chicago for school, or in Colorado after the race, “home” has always been Michigan. I like things that are familiar, things that “feel like home” or “remind me of home” when I’m away. For me, home has always been equated with family: where my family is, there my home is.

But now things are changing. Home isn’t necessarily going to be someplace well-known or near my parents and siblings. Home might not look the way I want it to, smell the way I think it should, or contain the kinds of people I’m accustomed to.

Home is the place where I’m planted. The place where my community is. The place in which I have a sphere of influence.

Home right now is a cute two-bedroom apartment in Gainesville, Georgia that I’m sharing with three other girls. Home is the AIM base where I’ll be working for the next six months as we plan and prepare to go to India. Home right now is wherever my team is – they’re my family for the next two years, and whenever we’re apart it just doesn’t feel quite right.

And in six or seven months, when we get to India, home will probably be another apartment shared with four girls in the noisy, smelly, busy, crazy, beautiful city of Mumbai. Home will be whatever part of the city we are planted in, whatever red-light district(s) we are working in, whatever busses & trains we take on a daily basis, whatever supermarkets and vendors we shop at. Home will be something we’ll have to create, because it will feel unnatural and different.

Also, over time, my team will hopefully be able to develop another home in India – this one not for ourselves. This home will be a safe house or restoration home. A place of solace from the red-light districts. A place for us to take in women and children who have known nothing but brothels their entire lives. A safe haven in the midst of the hustle and bustle of life in India.

So what is home? Home is family. Home is being able to establish a physical presence. Home is sphere of influence. Home is a safe place, a refuge. Home is, as cheesy as it sounds, “where the heart is.”

So as we go to India, keep our team in your prayers. Pray that we’ll find a home. Pray that we’ll be able to make a home. Pray that we’ll be able to help others figure out what home means along the way.