Back to the Motherland..

     I’ve been back in my home country for a whole week now, so I guess it’s definitely time for an update. In case you aren’t friends with me on Facebook… I graduated! Haha whew! :) Graduation was a lot of fun leading up to a lot of tears. While most people left on Friday (We did three trips to the train station! 4am, 10am and 1pm), Andreya and I hung around til Saturday morning. Side note to future students… you get extra love and attention from the staff when you are the last few students! Haha ;) We got an incredible stuffed french toast breakfast, went and explored a town about an hour away with a castle, then enjoyed a lovely dinner! Saturday Andreya and I got on a bus and went into Prague for the weekend! Monday morning we got up bright and early to go to the airport. My day started at 4am, which is 10pm Florida time (I actually posted that wrong on Facebook… 5am was when we left for the airport!).  It was probably the toughest goodbye I’ve ever had to say. Andreya and I had become extremely close in the past 6 months. When I came to DTS I had never imagined finding such a friend with whom I would be able to be so open and honest with. We laughed and cried together on so many occasions, and I know that neither of us will forget the wonderful memories of our time in Europe together and how God worked in and through us in those six months.

At 8am I boarded my flight and started the long journey home. I can only describe my feeling as numb shock. Of course I was so very excited to see my friends and family back home, but I was in complete shock that it was actually going to happen. That the 6 months had already flown by, and it was time to begin “re-entry” in the States. So after about 14 hours of traveling, I landed in the Sunshine State and was greeted by my parents, my grandma, my brother and his girlfriend, and one of my best friends and her husband. We went out for a delicious dinner at P.F. Changs, and the whole time I was thinking “Someone pinch me! Did I actually leave this place 6 months ago? Am I really home?” It was crazy.

     So onto the topic of re-entry and what that has been like! Since some of you are totally confused by the culture shock that I have been experiencing, hopefully this will give you a better explanation of why. First of all, of course I am extremely happy to be home and see everyone, but the other side of that is that I am extremely sad to be separated from my team because they also became family to me. They were with me during some of the craziest and most incredible months of my life. We lived in close quarters and learned very quickly what made us laugh, cry and many other fun random things. Our teacher the few days before graduation said something like this… “When you came to DTS it was a huge adjustment! Suddenly you were sharing one room with 5 other girls and one bathroom for everyone, and that was a shock! But now think about what is normal to you. It is totally normal to wake up hearing each other, wait for someone to get out of the bathroom, and then squeeze into a little kitchen to have breakfast together, and then start your day… TOGETHER.” We lived and thrived in community. We were stretched, and we grew… together. So coming home can be a little lonely to say the least. There is a part of me that just wants to go back, but I know that won’t fix anything. Everyone will still be in their own homes all over the world. So here I am, trying my hardest to readjust as gracefully as possible.

     I will share my experience with Walmart, since that also confused many. Again with what became “normal” to me… little Czech grocery stores, Czech signs/advertisements, people speaking Czech (which I learned to completely zone out because why listen when you don’t understand anything), and occasionally Czech music. I learned to zone most of this out actually. So going to Walmart was a horrifying English overload. Suddenly I am distracted by people speaking around me and the fact that I can understand everything they are saying, English advertisements and signs, English music playing in the background, and all the new things that cover the shelves. Have you walked down the salad dressing aisle lately? Why do we have so many options? It’s insanity. Chip aisle… same problem! So to say the least I had a slight panic attack. I grabbed my 3 necessities and ran for the self-check out.

     Another thing we were taught our last week that I now completely understand is the need to pray for patience and a heart for my own country. After seeing what I saw in those six months, I now understand the frustration behind “1^st world problems” that people complain about so often. It has been difficult to come back to the land of abundance. I hear “I’m starving!” and all I can think of are the little street kids we played with that actually were starving most days. I struggled this week with my own abundance and have already filled up a huge bag of clothes that I will be donating because my own closet was too overwhelming when I got home.

     There have been several people who have been incredibly kind to make plans and spend time just asking about my time and listen to me ramble on and on. It has helped so much to have those people around that are interested in what happened during my time away, but also in being there to ask how I’m doing with being back home. I truly didn’t expect things to be so difficult so quickly. I thought that it would be at least two weeks before I felt like I was crashing, but that feeling came much sooner than expected. Those six months were amazing, and I know I grew in ways I never could have if I hadn’t gone. It was a spiritual high in my life, but the fall from that high back to reality has been a tough one.

Now onto the “big question” that almost everyone has asked: What’s next?!

    To be honest, I can’t really answer that the way most people are expecting. What’s next for me is just being home and waiting for what God has next for me. I have a list of possibilities, but I am waiting for confirmation on what is first. The one thing I do know is that I will be working with children. That was something made very clear to me in the past year. In the mean time, I am thoroughly enjoying spending time catching up with friends and family. I have also been enjoying the warm weather and the beautiful ocean! I must say being cold and landlocked for so long definitely gave me a new appreciation for the warmth and ocean. I do love Florida and all the wonderful people God has put in my life here. I am looking forward to reconnecting in the next few months and also using my free time to help out at my church which so graciously helped me go and so warmly welcomed me home. Of course, I will also have to start working again, which I will hopefully have figured out by the end of this month if not sooner.

    Lastly, I have been asked what is the biggest change I have seen in my own life in the past six months, which I think is a difficult but great question. There are a few things that I know really changed. First, how big God really is and how silly the tiny box I used to put Him in was. I got to see God move in ways I never had before. He provided for my team and I time and time again. I also learned and really began to understand the unconditional love He has for me. Another huge change I felt was the freedom I have. Macedonia forever changed how I view myself and my future. That week really helped me to overcome a lot of fears I had. If you had asked me last year if I would consider going to Macedonia by myself with two women I didn’t know to live in Roma villages and work with kids that don’t speak or understand English I would have thought you were insane. But God used that time to really teach me that with Him it is always an adventure, and that I can go anywhere because He will go before me and with me every step of the way.

Dan Baumann said our first week, “The safest place to be is exactly where God wants you.” This came from a man who spent a little over two months in an Iranian prison, and his love for Jesus is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. People joked with me in the beginning asking if I was ready to go to Iran, and the answer for a long time was “Heck no! Are you crazy?” But that reaction has slowly changed. The verse 1 John 4:18 came to life for me during outreach… “Perfect love casts out fear.” That whole chapter really spoke to me in the last 6 months. It is a beautiful reminder of His love for us, and why we love others. This is what I have to hold on to when the difficulty of re-entry hits me. This is what I will continue to hold on to no matter what life might throw my way. This is what gives me hope for my future.

On that note I will close, especially since I can see that I have typed over 1700 words… sorry. Anyways, to my team- I love and miss you all like crazy! To my wonderful friends and family here in Florida- thank you for your love and support, it means so much to me. I look forward to continuing to catch up with everyone and also hearing about what has been going on in your lives!

Love y’all!  :)