I have been mulling over a personal revelation for nearly a month now.
Several weeks ago there was a short-term mission team from the U.S. visiting the Homes of Hope campus. This was a lovely team, filled with persons whom I know and whom know me.
Our week with this team culminated with time spent together one final night on campus. There is a gym on campus, essentially a large piece of concrete covered by a tin roof where the mums relish these final nights with a team, for they have had a week to get to know each other, and now we gather to play volleyball and enjoy a late night tea together.
This night, however, I found myself sitting and conversing with my Fijian friends, the mums that make up the residents of Homes of Hope. While some of the mums played volleyball with the team members from overseas, some of the team playing with and enjoying the children, I sat at the edge of the gym with several of the mums who were watching the activity.
Amidst this, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I could not place or dispel…and it was toward the end of this night that I began to understand what this uncomfortable feeling was and its origin:
You see, this team from the U.S. is from my country, my home nation. This team had persons I had gotten to know and enjoy. This team had come to know some of my own personal joys and struggles of working at Homes of Hope. If I would ever feel at home with a group of people, it is these, those whom are of my own culture and common perspective.
Yet I find myself more at home in this moment with the woman whom are my family now, whom I share life and home with.
The discomfort is this: That my people, so to speak, have become strangers in a land where I was previously a stranger. Those whom I relish my time with, whom I want to spend my time with have become those who will never understand my home culture.
This is a jolt for me; a new feeling. Blessed am I to have a hand to hold, that of child, friend, co-worker, and a Persistent Jesus.
