It is so surreal to say but I AM HOME! After about 12 months of wild adventures, incredible community, and powerful encounters with the Lord, I’ve made it to the good ol ICT (for you non-Kansas folks, that’s Wichita, KS), my home for the past 27 years.
Home is an interesting term and really one that I have used to describe every single place I rested my head this past year which was too many to count. Home to me is wherever I am because home isn’t about stuff or even a location, HOME to me is a feeling and I feel at home in the Lord.
I feel so many emotions that I really don’t have words. People ask “how was your trip?” Well meaning, I’m sure but I’m like “duh! It was amazing but do you really want to know about the hardest most fantastic year of my life because take a seat, it’s a long one that I can’t fully express in words.” I can share about the many tears shed with each goodbye, each challenge, each feeling of being so incredibly seen by those around me and incredibly known by my Father. I could share about the radical prayers we uttered and watched as God continued to blow our minds. I could talk about the odd food we ate, the many hours spent in transit on planes, trains, and automobiles and boats. I could talk about all of the wild adventures camping in the desert in Jordan, hiking mountains in Kyrgyzstan, and exploring historic China. I could share deep stories of heart connections with people the Lord allowed me to meet in places where we don’t even speak the same language. This life is WILD and I feel so honored that the Lord led me here.
And hows the transition back?
TOUGH. It’s strange and wonderful all at once.
It’s odd. Hearing English everywhere, flushing toilet paper, drinking tap water, and doing self- checkout at the grocery store. It’s overwhelming the decisions and options and availability of everything, having a phone with data and being able to communicate wherever I am not constantly searching for WIFI. It’s strange to come back home, sleep in my bed as if I never left, as if I hadn’t just spent the past year wandering around the world. It’s completely overwhelming to think about the BIG decisions that I need to make when I can’t even decide where to eat for dinner. It’s been difficult and I would be lying if I said that I haven’t randomly woken in the middle of the night to find that I have been sobbing thinking about how I no longer share a space so close to those strangers 11 months before who are now the people who know me the best. But in all of this, it’s beautiful.
It’s beautiful to realize no matter what happens these next few months, that my confidence lies in the Lord and in Him alone and that will always be enough.
What a wild ride and I’m just so grateful.
To the beautiful peeps of M Squad: dang! Thank you for facing this year bravely on as we navigated the ups and downs. Thank you for praying bold prayers and standing firm in the belief that God WILL ALWAYS come through. Thank you for celebrating in the victories and standing close in the sorrows. And thank you for seeing me and loving me in new ways that I have never before in my life been loved.
To my family: thank you for supporting me so fully in this wild adventure. You didn’t just roll your eyes and slough it off as some weird thing that Hadassah is doing…again! But you fully embraced it, fully embraced me, and said you are with me in and through it all. You gave me space when I needed it and you came in close when you knew I needed it. You’ve asked well thought out questions without pressuring me for answers or decisions. I love you so much and am so thankful that I get to be loved by you all!
And to every single person who supported me through prayer, financial giving, and love:
We did it! We all did it together. You gave me the perfect words at the right moment that I needed to hear to keep going. You gave money when all that I wanted to listen to said “no, there is no way that you can raise that much money!” You prayed countless prayers in sacred moments with the Father that I will never know about. Thank you! This is the body of Christ and this is what drives us further into the callings on our lives.
I love you all so much and am so grateful for each and every one of you.
Keep praying bold prayers, keep saying ”yes” to the Father, and keep loving others so well.
