This last week I had the opportunity to go on our ministry's missions trip to Baja California. We arrived home just two nights ago.
And now to begin the re-entry process.
I am always depressed after a missions trip. For a week (however long) it is like we step out of time into some alternate world. We have awesome encounters and crazy Jesus-y experiences. And then we step back into reality as though nothing happened and nothing changed. And I hate that. I hate coming home to a world which is exactly the same as I left it. After all these experiences I just had I am not the same. I am changed. But my surroundings are not. And it can be so easy to default back into old patterns. But by doing so I begin to act like everything is the same. The passage of time also threatens my experiences, to wipe away and dilute out everything I have seen. I hate the idea I will lose sight of all these powerful experiences.
There is also the fact these children and these people, who just days ago I was helping and serving, are still there and still in need. Meanwhile I find myself back at home in my comfortable life-style. There was this sense on the trip that I was actually doing something, living for God, accomplishing something. Now I am home and what am I doing? What purpose am I achieving now? I have to recalculate and re-calibrate my daily purpose.
All of this can be exacerbated by people (understandably) wanting to know how the trip was. How do you capture in a sentence everything about the trip? "It was challenging" or "it was life changing" just cannot express everything I want it to. It can feel like I devalue the memories by trying to reduce them into a couple words. But it can also be overwhelming for you and your friend when you go into the 55 minute answer to the question "how was Mexico?" I find myself wanting to be around those who also went, who are also processing, because we do not have to explain anything. Even if we are not talking about our experiences we understand without words what each other are going through.
I do not want to forget Mexico. I do not want to forget the people I met in Mexico. I do not want to forget all God taught me in Mexico. It was only a week and the experiences were not too different from other missions trips I have been on, but still the truth is I am different and things are not the same. The challenge ahead is figuring out how to walk in this truth.
