Back to (a New) Reality

When you prepare to return home after two years of overseas missions work, they encourage you to read certain texts and debrief with others to make the transition back home a little easier. Last year, I had anticipated the reverse culture shock I would encounter back in the US and overcame it quite well, so I imagined I had conquered the difficult stuff and would be more or less a pro upon re-entry this time around.

I was wrong.

To be honest, despite one semi-dramatic, jet-lagged crying episode at Kroger when the yogurt aisle, despite its seemingly endless possibilities, failed to produce my favorite daily Czech brands, culture shock in itself has again proved fairly easy to beat. I can deal with the new onslaught of corny reality TV shows, massive 4-lane highways, and overpackaged hamburgers, but it is my two-year absence itself that has become my biggest obstacle.

When I left two years ago, I said goodbye temporarily to friends, family and relationships that had comprised my reality in the US, people I couldn’t imagine being absent in my life for what I thought would be a single year in the Czech Republic. But time and distance put strain on those people during that first year, alienating them from my new reality that they couldn’t experience and that my words weren’t sufficient enough to explain. We managed to survive and they reluctantly stuck by me in my decision to return to the Czech.

But the second year proved more laborious in terms of contact with people back home, and my changing location and limited phone and internet access made keeping in touch with me a daunting task. And I knew that. And if was daunting for people at home, it was equally as daunting for me as I struggled through living abroad without familiar people, facing new challenges and adventures that I often had no on close to share with.

Because of that, I looked forward to returning home with intense anticipation, giving me something familiar to look forward to when I felt alone and lost. My biggest mistake, however, was being so caught up in my own daily struggles and underestimating the life-changing struggles that people were facing on the other side of the ocean.

Home is always home. It’s not supposed to change. And I miscalculated how I would react to the two years that certainly had gone on without me in my absence. While most of my loved ones rejoiced at my return and embraced me again into their lives, I also came home to the unspoken assumption that I’d been foolishly gallivanting across Europe, ignoring loved ones at home and avoiding problems and relationships I’d “intentionally” left behind. I found that many weren’t at all interested in what I’d really done in the Czech or what life had been like there. And from some, I even felt avid hostility and rejection; they felt distant from me, and I from them.

Just as I have changed and grown dramatically during two years as a missionary, they have changed as well - and I wasn’t here to experience it with them or support and rejoice with them during pivotal moments in their journey. Most have been abundantly supportive and understanding of the situation, honestly enquiring about my time abroad and remaining truly loyal friends, no matter where I happened to be. But with others, there’s a noticeable cavern caused by some unintentional offence and betrayal on my part, and an inadequate ability to appreciate the true cause on theirs.

Just as God asked me to relinquish to Him the Czech ministry, returning home heightened my awareness of the people and reality I’d lost at home as well, unintentionally and sometimes unconsciously. So, here I am back in the USA, struggling with losses on both sides of the ocean and fighting back the nagging thought that I should have never left my comfortable reality here two years ago, and that then I would still be a part of it. But I know that it’s a silly thought. The Lord wanted me in the Czech Republic, and I knew when I left that it would require faith and a willingness to give up earthly things I clung to…whether it be indoor plumbing or an old friend.

While I am truly sorry for not being physically and emotionally present to support loved ones on this continent the past two years, I also can’t feel guilty about doing what I felt led to do, and most of my loved ones understand that. Instead, I feel blessed that He’s allowed me to return home and be surrounded by family and friends that have always stuck by me, no matter what, and giving me the new opportunity to be there for them in return. I have to count my losses and be grateful for the ever-changing realities that we are blessed with, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to let people I love get to know me again.