My possessions are causing me suspicion but there’s no proof
In the paper today tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the TV page. . .
– Crowded House, “Don’t Dream, It’s Over”
Hope Mendola is at home in Ohio, where she hadn’t been in about two years; she wrote this post two weeks in the states but only two days in Ohio:
Since I’ve been home I’ve found myself tossing and turning at night as I wonder how it’s possible for the impoverished widow I met in Africa to exist in her conditions at the same time I’m existing in mine. I squeeze my eyes shut as I try to imagine her – it all seems so far away and unreal. And yet it haunts me.
I try to imagine the Bishop in Kenya – he has little money, but big dreams. And a big heart. What is he doing right now? Does he know that he’s impacted my life forever? I think of the orphanage in the Philippines, and I try to imagine holding one-month-old Hannalia – though really she is going on three or four months now.
Everything in my mind is a blur, and sometimes I can’t even think back to the first half of my trip. It was so long ago.
She goes on to share a bit of turbulence she hit and shares this realization:
I took great leaps on the World Race, and by the end of the eleven months I had changed a lot. I guess I hoped that everything would be better when I came home – that the giant leaps I took on the race would automatically transfer over to my life at home.
But no, that’s not going to happen, and in that way I think I’ve experienced my greatest culture shock. Instead, I must take small steps. I will fall down and crumble, like I did last night, but I have to remember to keep trying, and not to view my downfalls as the end. . .
Ashley Higgins expresses well the tension of being in a familiar place as a different person:
I was expecting to be really overwhelmed with everything. I had convinced myself that grocery shopping would impossible and that I would most likely forget where the silverware was kept. I was afraid the culture would shock me and that I would forget to speak English and flush the toilet paper. But it wasn’t like that at all. I stepped off of the plane and walked right back into normal life. And everything was good. For eight whole days.
And then I had a breakdown.
I realized that I don’t want everything to be normal. Because I don’t want to be normal. I certainly don’t want to walk right back into which I was. Because I have been changed. I have been awakened. I have been set free. I have seen poverty and desperation in ways I can’t dream up. And I have seen God move in ways that most people only ever read about. And I still want it. All of it.
I have no neat way of tying these two ladies’ thoughts together. I myself still don’t feel quite settled down, even nearly a year at home. I only offer the simple assurance to the new alumni and the soon to be alumni that it did happen, and it wasn’t a dream. So, no need to bother trying to wake yourself up because you already are.
