The countdown has begun. My teammate told me that today marks 70 days until our feet touch American soil. That means just over 10 weeks until I am back in Austin with my family. I am sure that I am going to get this question a lot when I return: are you excited to be home? I want to answer that here on my blog, so that you get a coherent answer out of me. If you ask me that in the first two weeks I am back I am pretty sure I will dissolve into a puddle of tears. Here is the truth- Austin doesn’t feel like home to me any more. But let me back up a little bit.
Last month my squad was in the Philippines. At the end of the month my parents and I got the opportunity to do ministry together for a week. Long story short, it was amazing and hard. Ministry was quite a shock for all of us and this was my parents’ first mission trip. Essentially they got thrown into the fire. Between the heat, questionable living conditions, and spiritual stress of rescuing women from the sex industry, it was a full and exhausting week. I was so excited to see my parents and to give them a little taste of my world. Their lives were transformed by what they experienced and I would like to think that this was just the first of many mission trips we will do together in the future. However, having that taste of America was quite a shock for me. When they began seeing and doing things for the first time (things that have become my reality the past 9 months) I realized that people won’t understand what I’ve been through unless they have experienced it themselves. I am happy to say that by the end of our time together, my parents did have a better understanding of certain aspects of Race life, but there are still more that they will probably never understand. And that goes for all the other people I left back in the States too. No matter how much detail I use or how many pictures I post, there will always be a rift between hearing about it and actually going through it. Now I am not by any means saying that everyone home needs to try harder or do better; it’s just the truth of the situation. It also shocked me how unfamiliar I was with my own parents. I like to think that they are the closest people to me in all the world, but there was definitely a gap that had formed in our lives simply because we haven’t seen each other every day. They didn’t get my inside jokes and I had to play catch-up with what was happening in their lives. On top of both those revelations, I know that I have changed a lot in the past 9 months as well. After my parents left I was contemplating why I was dreading going home all of the sudden, because before then I was excited about returning to Texas. I figured out that I don’t truly know the people I left in Texas and they don’t truly know me anymore either. How can I feel like I’m coming home if I don’t feel known and I don’t know those I am coming “home” to?
When I came to that conclusion a fair amount of panic ensued. I hid away from life for a few days and tried to figure out how I was going to avoid all the hard emotions I was experiencing. Thankfully my God doesn’t let me hide away for long. The first thing He did was show me where my home is right now. My home is my worn Teva sandals that have walked a thousand miles. My home is the 10 outfits that I wear over and over again. My home is my giant backpack that I can finally lift now without a person or wall to support me. My home is in the journal that I have poured out prayers, lamentations, and praise. But most importantly, my home is in the people that I have gotten to do life with these past 9 months. In a constant change of country, ministry, beds, and houses, these amazing people provided me with stability, with a foundation. They give me a safe place to rest so that I can continue chasing and serving God. The next thing God showed me, gently of course, is that I was being just a little ridiculous. There was a good reason for me to be nervous about returning to the States, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be amazing too. I got this idea in my head that this year, the best one of my life, was coming to a close and nothing could ever surpass this. I can feel God rolling His eyes even as I type that sentence. Why wouldn’t this next year be filled with just as many exciting things and incredible people? The God who led me to this mission trip is the same God who is leading me home.
So, all that to say, I am a ball of emotions when I think about walking through the door to my own house, sleeping in a bed without any other people, and unpacking my pack for the millionth and final time. I’ll make you a deal though, I’ll share my life with you if you share yours with me. Maybe we have both changed. You have experienced just as much as I have this past year and it will take some time to talk about it all, but I want to know and I want to share too. I want to walk into this next season with full expectations and I need people to walk with me.
