Amy Medina | Amy Medina

Two Years In

On March 29, 2022

In Re-Entry to America, Third Culture Kids

I’ve been thinking that I would welcome a lock-down about now. It sounds lovely to imagine no soccer practice, no activities taking my teens in all different directions, and plenty of time for meandering family walks around the neighborhood. I wonder how different things would have been for us if the pandemic had hit in 2022 instead of 2020.

Of course, when I daydream, I only imagine the good parts. And I often fail to remember how the real-life bad parts have contributed to the real-life good parts I have today.

The pandemic, as awful as it was for us, is what brought us to Redlands. If we hadn’t left Tanzania early, Gil wouldn’t have been available to take the substitute job that led to his current job. I’m happy in 2022, but we wouldn’t have gotten here without 2020, even though I wish I could erase it.

Two years in, I can genuinely say that I love where God has planted me.

Walk beyond my neighborhood, and I find acres of orange groves. In the winter the brilliant oranges stand out against lush green leaves like California Christmas ornaments. Now that it’s spring, I open my windows, and in wafts the heady scent of orange blossoms.

Two Years Back

By Amy Medina

On March 16, 2022

In Leaving Tanzania

I had never seen so many pets at the airport.

On March 25, 2020, no one was panicking at the Dar es Salaam airport. But all those pets, restless in their hard plastic crates, added to the air of foreboding. People traveling for business or tourism don’t take their pets on international flights. But they do when running away.

Ironically, it was also the first time I had been at that airport. For two decades, we had flown out of the tiny Dar airport – only six gates, despite the thousands who passed through it every week. The new, large, modern airport had opened in late 2019, complete with towering, echoing ceilings, a Pizza Hut, and a polite British voice that announced every five minutes, Attention travelers: It is not permissible to bring plastic bags into Tanzania.

We stood in line in that shiny new airport in the quiet, tense air and wondered if our plane was even there and if the airport in Qatar was even open and if they were even going to let Johnny on that flight. And when they let us through, I was relieved but also devastated because part of my heart hoped that they would turn us away and we would be forced to stay in Tanzania, even though we had already sold our beds.

The memories are vivid: the pets at the airport. How Johnny almost couldn’t board until the woman from the embassy just happened to be in line next to us and advocated on our behalf. How our kids were excited to get soft-serve ice cream at Pizza Hut, but I was nauseous and everything tasted like dust in my mouth. How it felt like we were running away from home.

Five days after we arrived in California, I wrote my account of that experience. I don’t need to read it to remember the details forever lodged in my brain. But two years later, different things stand out. Mostly, I think of the people who loved us that week.

This American High

By Amy Medina

On March 7, 2022

In Eternity, Fear, Living Like a Missionary

When I was a girl, my most prized possession was my sticker collection. Around age 10, Mom took me to a craft boutique, and I clearly remember the moment I laid my eyes on the most perfect sticker book ever: A photo album with a pink hand-sewn cover, hearts embroidered on top.

My Gram snuck stickers into birthday cards. I peeled every sticker off A+ quizzes. “Trading stickers” was my favorite friend activity, and I relished carefully placing each sticker in that perfect album, gazing upon their colorful, sublime wonder over and over again.

I lay in bed, worrying about fires and thieves and tidal waves, and knew confidently what item I would save first: that sticker book.

A couple of weeks ago, my parents dug out my boxes of childhood treasures from the depths of their garage and brought them to my house. Lo and behold, there was my sticker book.

I look disdainfully at the object of my childhood adoration and see it for what it really is: a book of sticky paper, now browning around the edges. Thirty-five years offer a great deal of perspective.

Last week journalist Mindy Belz tweeted, “Pentecostal leader in Moldova writes of daughter and her family vacating their apartment and moving in with him so Ukrainian refugees can live in her place.”

Would I be willing to do that?

Does God Want Us to Fight For Our Freedom?

By Amy Medina

On February 16, 2022

In Fear, How Americans Think, Living Like a Missionary

Early in our marriage, Gil casually mentioned that he wasn’t sure he would have been on the side of the Patriots in the Revolutionary War.

I wondered if I had married some kind of Benedict Arnold. Movies, songs, and Christian school ingrained in me that Patriots were on God’s side – they were the good guys, the heroes. The Loyalists were filthy rotten traitors who had no right to call themselves American, let alone Christian.

But Gil has always been one to question the status quo; it drives me crazy, but that’s part of why I fell in love with him. He explained that he is deeply grateful for American freedoms, and he is not necessarily a pacifist. He simply doesn’t know if “taxation without representation” was a biblical reason to go to war.

That’s my Gil; he always has to bring the Bible into it. I wish it was easier to ignore him.

(If you’re wondering if I am heading into the realm of crazy talk, please, don’t deport me yet. Hang in there with me.)

I sense a pervasive worldview among Americans: God wants us to fight for our freedom. Let your memory roll through American history – the wars, the invasions, the protests, the marches. Americans believe that fighting for freedom is a God-ordained right….even a responsibility.

But is this biblical truth?

Ironically, first-century Jews expected Jesus to be their George Washington, leading them in their own Revolutionary War. The oppression they experienced under Rome went far beyond unfair taxation. Jesus’ disciples waited with bated breath for the moment when he would call them to arms to overpower the Romans.

Except, he never did.

To Bribe or Not to Bribe, That is the Question

By Amy Medina

On February 11, 2022

In A Life Overseas, Poverty, Thoughts on Missions

This piece was originally published at A Life Overseas.

We were on our way home from church and stopped at a petrol station.

We fished around for cash; credit cards weren’t an option in our host country. My husband had only 50,000 shillings on him.

As the attendant filled the tank, I triumphantly rustled up another 30,000 shillings from the depths of my purse. “Aha! We can top up now!” I declared.

I leaned over and asked the attendant, “Please add another 30,000.”

But instead of giving us more gas, the guy pulled out a wad of receipts from his pocket and rifled through them. He pulled out one for 80,000 shillings and offered it to me with an arched eyebrow.

I stared at him, baffled. What on earth was going on?

Suddenly it dawned on me: he didn’t realize I was asking for more gas; he thought I wanted a receipt for 30,000 more than what we had paid. Why would he make that assumption and then nonchalantly comply?

Because it was a commonplace request.

In our host country, hiring a driver to run errands was routine. It was also routine for that driver to fill up the gas tank and then bring his employer an inflated receipt for reimbursement, making himself some profit on the side.

So when customers left their receipts behind, the gas station attendants collected them, ready to dutifully pass them on to pilfering drivers. If I had wanted a false receipt, all I needed to do was ask. Embezzlement was that easy.

****

I sat in the cubicle next to the designer’s computer as she put the finishing touches on the banner I was requesting.

“Looks great!” I exclaimed. “You said 150,000 shillings, right? Please put the name of my school on the receipt.”

“Oh, if you want a receipt, it will be an additional 20%,” she quickly corrected me.

20%: The government sales tax.

Why wasn’t the tax automatically included in the quotation? I didn’t need to ask why; I had heard the answer before. Many customers would go elsewhere if she included tax in her quotations. If her business wanted to compete, her only choice was to offer under-the-table prices. She was trapped.

****

I entered my new culture in my early 20’s, idealistic and naive, ready to change the world. The reality of ethics in a developing country smacked me in the face.

Author: Amy Medina Page 14 of 229

Two Years In

Two Years Back

This American High

Does God Want Us to Fight For Our Freedom?

To Bribe or Not to Bribe, That is the Question