Written Sunday, November 20th, on the plane ride home
They say it happens to everyone at different times. For one, it happens in the cereal aisle. Who ever knew that there could be 276 varieties of cereal, and who could possibly choose just one? For another, it happens in the personal care section. The reality that you really can buy shampoo, conditioner AND body wash just overwhelms you, and let’s not mention the fact that Listerine Cool Burst mouthwash may once again enter your daily hygiene regiment.
For me, it happened over a salad. I was at Chili’s with a good friend. We were still in Malaysia for Final Debrief. It would only be a few days until we returned home, but we were just in the mood for some American food. Being there felt weird. There was western music and western food. You could hardly tell that you weren’t in the States.
I have a sliiiiight preference – okay, all-out obsession with – caesar salads. It’s my “go to” meal at many restaurants. I ordered a bowl of chili and a caesar salad. The salad arrived, and I took a bite. And it all came out. Going home, American food, leaving this journey behind me, returning to my “comfort zone,” realizing that life at home will never be the same.
I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, sitting at Chili’s, getting emotional over high-calorie lettuce. Then the server came and poured us free refills, and I lost it. (No, not really; I just thought I’d add that in there for humor’s sake.)
They call it culture shock. It’s the emotional roller coaster experienced when entering a new culture or returning to your own. I experienced culture shock when I returned from a study abroad semester in Italy. Going to the grocery store felt overwhelming, like entering another world. Ordering from a menu at a restaurant was odd, as was not paying extra for ketchup.
But this culture shock feels different already. This may be attributed to the fact that our last county was Malaysia, and it was hardly the third world. Kuala Lumpur alone had at least ten mega-malls – shopping complexes averaging ten stories each, with movie theaters, Starbucks, pretzels places, Banana Republic and GAP, and even an indoor theme park! It wasn’t exactly like being the bush of Africa. Even a trip to Target may seem a little anti-climatic after seeing those places.
But something has struck me.
The World Race is easy.
It’s easy to put a few outfits and a tent in a backpack and claim to have “forsaken everything.”
It’s easy to not “forsake the orphans and the fatherless” (Deut. 24:16) when that’s what you wake up to do everyday.
It’s easy to scoff at the American materialistic mega-church when the church you went to last Sunday was in a treehouse.
It’s easy to claim the simple life when your entire diet consists of white rice and variations of meat in sauce.
It’s easy to claim a call on your life to spread the Kingdom when you are literally fulfilling the Great Commission. I mean, if 11 countries doesn’t count as “all the world,” I’m not sure what does.
The World Race is easy.* What’s hard is to return to a world that you don’t quite know how to make sense of anymore. Somewhere along the way, we were told that the life we used to live was flawed, lacking, and too small for God’s plan. We went into the world to sit on the streets with beggars and cast witchcraft out of villages. We were ignited with a passion to live a life greater than ourselves, but here’s the scary part: there’s nothing quite like home to remind us of just that: a life that kind of fits. A life that was comfortable and logical, generally free of God-fearing risk and supernatural encounters.
So how do we do it? How do we return to the life we knew but continue to be the people we became? If I am changed, what needs to change? What does bold faith look like in a comfortable world?
On the Race, we made half-joking references to our “real lives,” as in Well, in my real life, I would never eat a peanut butter and Corn Flakes sandwich (true story), because honestly, there were days you’d wake up on a mountain in Swaziland and just wonder if the sunrise was real. But right now I am on a plane, and my real life is about to show up at baggage claim (no metaphorical references there). It’s right around the corner, cell phones and microwaves and fat-free milk and all.
I have no answers, although I think I’ve learned more than I think I have. I will take it one day at a time. The call on our lives as followers of Christ does not change with time zones or job titles.
Several attempts at concluding this blog have failed, so here’s the the only thing that pretty much transcends culture, geography, and post-World Race culture shock.
“I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
Acts 20:24
*The term “easy” used here refers to a lifestyle of living out the Great Commission everyday as part of World Race culture. It does not refer to all World Race experiences, including but not limited to lack of hygiene, getting lost in major cities, sleeping on airport floors, running to catch trains, sitting through four-hour church services in Nepalese or choking down unidentifiable animal parts in an attempt to not offend the village people. Neither AIM nor the writer are responsible for people joining the World Race in hopes of an easy year.
