I finished the race, I ran through the red tape. No really, my nieces held up the red tape and I ran though it when I got off the airplane in Bozeman. Upon arrival I was greeted by my family, closest friends, nose hair freezing sub-zero temperatures and waffles; just like I had been dreaming of. I’m home and somewhere in the last few days I have found that the world race is now behind me. I am back in the land of big trucks, cowboy boots, politics, snow, Target and other white people.
It’s strange. It’s strange because after a year of everything being unfamiliar things feel almost normal, but now normal is strange. It’s strange because the 60 liter pack that used to contain my life is now just in the corner of a room that is not really mine. It’s strange because there are pictures on the refrigerator of me in Africa, reminding me my family must have missed me. It’s strange because I hugged and kissed my nieces for the first time in a year, and watched one of my best friends get married. It’s strange because for the first time in a year I have spent the day mostly alone. It’s strange to me that you can end up in the same place that you left, and it can feel seemingly the same as it did a year ago, but all together different.
A year of constant transition has transformed my definition of home. It has changed from a place on a map, to more of an idea. I have found that home is more about the place that you find rest then a covering over your head. It’s the place that you know you are loved.
In Nicaragua (month two) I woke up one morning with the feeling I was home. You know the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you wake up in your bed after you have been away for awhile. I quickly reoriented myself with the reminder I was not home; I was in Nicaragua on a sleeping mat living in a tent city surrounded by 50 people I had just recently met. I had no real house in my life I called home. It was in Nicaragua that I fell in love with “M squad”. Maybe it was all of us sharing two toilets, or the amount of pick axing we did, or the amount of manuter cheese we had to endure together, or the time spent having conversations under the most amazing stars, or maybe just Jesus magic, but those people, they became my home for the year, my family. They provided a place of rest for my weary missionary soul.
We went through so much together. Together we battled outlandish foreign sicknesses and plain old homesickness. We visited each other in the hospital and carried each other when broken feet or sprains made gimpys. We hiked mountains together, played cards together, and worshiped Jesus together. We flew to the other side of the world and slept in mud huts together. We went out into the world to make disciples of Jesus, together. It was an incredible year but the best part, was that we did it together.
It is the home we created together that was so beautiful. It was the grace and patience given as we navigated the sometimes rocky road of constant community. The peace in knowing whoever you are is enough because we are all sons and daughters of God. It was the joy and the laughter in the midst of hard times. The compassion and prayers sent out. We got to watch each other grow as Jesus transformed our lives over and over again. We became part of each other’s stories. We became the body of Christ. The church. We became Home.
So to my dearest M Squad, my Mobile Home,
I love you. And now that we are not together I miss you all. Stretched across the country, you are still family.
Love
Nika
