You know the song “From Now On” from The Greatest Showman? The bridge says “and we will come back home, home again” and they sing that about a hundred times.
Man, we LOVED singing that song at training camp. It was a few months after the musical had come out and it always got us feelin’ awake and ready for our afternoon session.
In the Dominican Republic, all 33 of us (plus our little sisters and their dogs) crowded onto a roof/porch to watch the movie together. All we could hear was one another crunching on Doritos, but we all belted “WE WILL COME BACK HOME, HOOOOME AGAIN.”
Fast forward eight months, and it started hitting us that we’re going home soon. It was the beginning of month nine, we had started looking at jobs back home, and we were at our last full debrief before final debrief. After we had worship one night, our squad leader, LeAnn and our raised up squad leader, Claire, sang and played that same song. Nostalgia hit us hard; we got to reflect on training camp and our first month together as a squad – how we’d grown, how we were missing home, and how we now had eight new countries to call “home.”
Yesterday, my team and I were sitting around the coffee table at our AirBnb in Serbia, and we talked about what “home” means to us now. It looks different to everyone, and it brings me so much fullness to know that God provides us home when we ask for it- when we ask Him to fill us up and to surround us with people who remind us that we are welcome and we are loved.
We talked about how there will be a time when what I now view as “home” won’t be home anymore. There are places I’ve called “home” in the past year that I’ll never see again. There will be a time in just a couple of months when the next time I will see the community I’ve been living in for 11 months all together is when we all go to our eternal Home (sorry that’s a bit of a bummer).
Coming home is one of the sweetest feelings, and I’ve gotten to experience it at our compound in the DR, our compound in Haiti, our schoolhouse in South Africa, our little village home in Botswana, our mansion (to us) in Zambia, our schoolhouse in India, our family home in Nepal, our missionary house in Romania, our apartment in Bulgaria, and now our Airbnb in Serbia (& soon our farmhouse).
I’m flying to Charleston, SC in 50 days. That reality is very surreal and bittersweet. I’m applying for jobs, planning my trip to an amusement park to scream out a lot of feelings, and getting so, so excited to see my family and friends. But living in a community like this for the past 275 days has been life-changing and challenging and incredible, and it’s scary to be leaving it.
In all of that, I am so thankful that even though every home is built by someone, that God is the builder of everything (Heb. 3:4). I’m thankful for homes around the world, for the people who make home in the US something to cherish and look forward to, for the people on my squad who have been home to me this year, and for my Home waiting for me.
See y’all soon, and thanks for being the best support system ever!
Amy
