“This is my culture, this is my culture, this is my culture,” I told myself as I washed my hands.
I’d already been stunned by the automatic flushing toilet (before I even had the joy of tossing my TP in, might I add), I was running my hands under the automatic faucet, after the automatic soap dispenser shot green soap out and into my hand. I waved my hand in front of the automatic paper towel dispenser and dried my hands off.
I was at a church.
I tried really hard to not think of the churches I’ve attended over the last year. How pastor Joseph in Kenya was really excited about the one bathroom stall out on the road they’d been able to build. It was a simple squatty potty that shot water everywhere when you pulled the long handle to flush.
I kept telling myself that it was the same God that I’ve been worshipping all year that I was worshipping that night, in the nice auditorium with the big screen and the comfy chairs. He’s the same God here that people in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia love.
I’m in my 12th country. I’m home.
In our re-entry packet, we were told there were three possibilities of what we would become. The assimilator, the person who goes back to living life as if nothing had ever happened. The integrator, the person who takes what he/she learned and integrates it into his/her life in the U.S. Then there’s the Alienator, the person who comes home and starts hating on everything about American life.
At that moment, in the bathroom, I felt like the third.
That night, however, I went home and slept in what is perhaps the most comfortable bed in the world, knowing what a blessing it was to even have that bed to sleep on. In the morning, I yanked the comforter off and instead covered myself with the African khanga that our host family gave me in Tanzania. I’m stuck between a down comforter and an African khanga.
Stuck between what feels good and what feels familiar.
I like air conditioning, but I get cold when the thermostat is set at 76 degrees. I used to keep my apartment’s thermostat at 70 degrees during the summer.
I like the feel of new clothes, but feel guilty putting them away after I wear them only once, knowing that I won’t wear them again for several days.
So the readjusting is happening, albeit slowly, as I try to figure out what life in a city in which God was rarely real to me, should look like after I’ve encountered a God who’s changed my life in a way I can’t even put into words.
Because sure, I can depend on God when you strip me of everything, including my loved ones, my personal space, and my Mexican food.
But what happens when I have everything I think I want and try to combine it with the God I know I need?
