When I was younger, the elementary school by my house had a carnival every year in the fall. And at the carnival, there was always a game where you had to stand behind a tape line and try to throw a ping pong ball into a little fishbowl with water in it. The fishbowls were in a triangle shape, and only a couple had fish in them. The goal was to get your ping pong ball into a bowl with a fish, and if you managed this, you won a goldfish of your very own.
And let me tell you, I was very good at this game. I always won a fish.
So, I learned that when you bring your new fish home, you need to let the fish chill out in the bag it comes in and have that bag float in the new water for a while, to let your new fishy friend get acclimated to the new water temperature. If you do not do this, your fishy will probably get culture shock and die. Which would be sad.
The good news is that you really just need to let your fish chill out overnight, then in the morning you can plop him into his new bowl and he will be as happy as a fish in a glass bowl filled with tap water can be. Then you will have successfully transplanted your fish.
The bad news is: people aren’t fish.
I feel like I’ve been transplanted here in Thailand far too soon. I feel as if God just plopped me down here without letting me ease in. I feel like I’ve been ripped from everything I know and everyone I love in Guatemala and left here in Thailand to stitch myself back together. I have no idea what I’m doing.
You would think, considering the fact that for the past two years I haven’t been in one place or around any one group of people for longer than four months, I would be used to this. But I don’t think that loving on people who you’ll never see again is something you get used to. The raw feeling you get after leaving, like there’s a big giant massive hole in your heart, is a side effect of loving whole-heartedly. And it doesn’t help that I was comfortable in Guatemala. I loved the country, and the culture; I could communicate with people, I knew a decent amount of Spanish, I could buy fried chicken on just about every street.
I never wanted to come to Thailand. As awful as that sounds. I’ve never been interested in Asian culture, I’ve never had any desire to come to Asia, I don’t like Asian food. I can’t read any of the signs to even try to pronounce words, because the Thai alphabet is a lot of squiggly lines. I can’t understand anyone and no one can understand me. It’s super frustrating.
So this is my stretching point. This is the first point on the Race where I know I need to lean on the Lord fully and completely, because there is absolutely no way I can do this by myself. I need to trust that even if I don’t like my new fishbowl, He’s not going to let me die a watery fishy death because of lack of cultural acclimation. He’s a better fish owner than that. And as long as I wake up every morning, I’ll take it as a sign that He’s not finished with me yet and He has a plan for the day.
