Around one month.
Around one month until I return to the United States. To a first world way of life. I am leaving behind all that I’ve known and drawn accustomed to. Around one more month of this life that my heart has grown so fond of. Yes, there are modern day luxuries that I am looking forward to. And the people I get to see again. There is a strong appeal to home and all that is familiar, what has become a sweet memory in the past 10 months. I have a longing and desire and excitement to return home. But there is also an ache and pain to leave. I realized that I will grieve living in third world countries. I feel alive here. I’m going to miss villages and cheap street food and interacting with people in spite of a language barrier. Everywhere is a mission field, they say. And I realized I’ve lived this principle long before my feet left American soil. But I feel called to the nations. I’ve had a taste of eternity, of the diversity of heaven. God is not American. He is so much more. I’ve seen the body of Christ as it truly is, not the microscopic view we so often have in the Western world. I want to experience life with my brothers and sisters around the world, the facets of God they embody.
I’ve laid on a bed next to an Indian woman and laughed as our eyes met in childlike joy. I’ve had family bible study in the home of a Nepali doctor who welcomed 8 strangers to stay with him simply because we bear the same name: Christian. I’ve sat in the street shop of a Guatemalan as she passionately shared the burdens on her heart and shared her testimony with a fire in her eyes. I’ve sat on the ground and prayed with a Ghanian woman who couldn’t walk and had so much pain in her eyes from an abusive past, but found her hope in the word of God. I’ve broke down and wept next to the bed of a young disabled Nepalese boy who lived in the slums and had more joy in his eyes than in anyone I had ever seen. I’ve interceded in prayer as my Filipino sister in Thailand shared the gospel for the first time with her friend who sold her body for money at a bar in Phuket and I saw her cry as she realized for the first time how loved she actually was. I’ve sang “How Great Is Our God” with an elderly prayer warrior in her small apartment in Cote D’Ivoire. I’ve prayed supernaturally in a native tongue for my Laotian sister who was experiencing heartache and the fire of God for the first time. I’ve been loved deeply by the people Hondurans rejected because of their special needs. I’ve held the hand of an El Salvadorian grandmother grieving the loss of her son being kidnapped. I’ve sang prophetically over my sisters in Cambodia trapped in the human trafficking industry.
This is my family.
This has become my home.
My home is in the hearts of many spread around the world.
In the joy and pain.
In the suffering and triumph.
This is where I’ve come alive and discovered where deep calls out to deep.
I’m returning home and leaving home simultaneously.
I’m about to walk familiar roads with foreign feet.
I’m coming back with a satisfied and longing heart.
In the musing of all of this, grief and celebration, I am reminded where my true home actually is, the one that prompted me to go on this journey in the first place. The place where I will join with all of my family from every tribe and tongue and nation to worship my King. So no matter what I may feel here, I will never be fully satisfied until I reach Heaven and see Jesus with my naked eyes… But for now I live as a sojourner, like the wind, going where the Spirit leads me to reap a harvest of many to return home…
