Category: Other Page 23 of 181

Visiting Home Might Not Be Everything You Dreamed

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On May 20, 2017

In Other

I struggled with knowing whether I should share this post here, because I wrote it for missionaries.  To anyone else, it might sound whiny or cynical.  But if you’re friends with missionaries (or any overseas worker), this might be helpful for you.  It may sound strange, but coming home can be just as difficult as adjusting to a new country.  I hope this may give you a glimpse into what it can be like.

Visiting Home Might Not Be Everything You Dreamed

When I’m overseas, I dream about Target.  Everything I need, all in one place, at reasonable prices!  So when our furlough started a month ago, I visited Target the day after I arrived.  

We’ve been missionaries for 13 years, so I should know better by now.  Target’s awesomeness can be a little too much to take in just 48 hours after leaving East Africa.  I was instantly bombarded with hordes of conflicting emotions.  Wow, it’s all so amazing!  Look at all this stuff!  Yeah, what’s wrong with Americans?  Why are they so materialistic?  That one pair of shoes could feed a family for a week in Tanzania.  And in just a couple of years, all these clothes will be cast off and end up in some market in Africa.  So why should I even bother shopping for them now?  Oooohhh….but I really like that blouse.

Emotional whiplash.  I couldn’t keep up.

And then when I finally did finish shopping, I felt like an idiot as the clerk tried to help me use the chip card machine.  Shoot, I thought I was doing well by just remembering how to use a credit card, and then they go and change all the rules on me!  “Sorry,” I mumbled to her.  “I’ve been living overseas a really long time.”

Ah, going home.  We dream about it.  We long for it.  We count the days until take off.  But when it finally arrives, the reality just doesn’t match up.  And we find ourselves in the midst of adjusting, all over again, to a place that we thought would feel like home.  We find ourselves struggling with disillusionment and discouragement.

So why can visiting home feel so hard?  Here are some thoughts.

People move on.  When you leave home for a just a few weeks or months, it’s easy to slip back into the same routines of life.  Friends, social events, and jobs all come back together just as they were before—just with more stories to tell.  But when you leave for years, life goes on without you.  In your mind, time stood still back at home, but in reality, your friends have gone through hard stuff and happy stuff, and you were not there to experience with them.  And all those people who sent you overseas with much fanfare?  They are a lot busier now, and might forget to roll out that red carpet you expected.

You are a different person.  Spending years in a different country changes you.  You’ve adapted to new ways of speaking, interacting, shopping, sleeping, and raising kids.  There are literally new pathways in your brain.  It’s not so easy to just drop all of that on a 14 hour flight and expect to become the same person you once were when you get back home.  You are not going to see the world the same way ever again.

Read the rest hereat A Life Overseas.

Medina Life, April 2017

By

On May 2, 2017

In Other

Easter Sunday

Believe it or not, there are four generations in this picture:  Babies, Mom, Grandfather, and Great-Grandmother.  
Three-legged cousins
Brotherly love part 1
A Medina tradition:  Street Wiffle Ball
Brotherly love part 2 (tagging him out)
All dressed up and freezing in our pretty Easter clothes
Auntie and nephew
winning the balloon toss

Brotherly love part 3
Cousin bonding
The whole gang….four generations.
Lots o’ cousins

Legoland

Driving this car may have been the pinnacle of his entire life thus far.

Dodger Stadium

In the Dodger dugout during a pre-game tour

with Grandpa at the new Jackie Robinson memorial
His first MLB game

California Poppy Fields 

Then up to my hometown of San Jose…

Children’s Discovery Museum

That right there is my very own niece.
And this amazingness is my nephew.
And just for fun, this was my own little guy 7 years ago, at the same location and the same age then as his cousin is now.  Apparently two-year-old boys are all pretty excited by this exhibit.
And this is my favorite little brother.
Who also happens to be a pretty incredible Dad.

Girls’ Day 

My aunt spoiled all us girls with lunch and pedicures and ice cream!

Giants’ Game

My Dad took Gil and the boys to a Giants’ Game.  I think my boys’ grandfathers are doing their best to confuse their poor grandsons by each supporting one of the two greatest rival teams in California.

And in between all this, we are doing things like homeschooling and preaching and making presentations and driving a lot and hugging a lot of people.  It’s overwhelming and wonderful and we are all enjoying ourselves immensely.

Six Privileges of Living in a Wealthy Country

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On April 21, 2017

In Other

Some benefits to living in a wealthy country are obvious:  Access to clean water, free schools, plenty of available food, non-stop electricity.  But it wasn’t until I had lived in a developing country for a number of years that I started seeing the more subtle privileges.  

1.      The privilege
of choosing your career.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  is a standard question for children.  We encourage our children to dream big, to
set goals, to reach for the stars.  We
take personality tests and analyze our strengths.  Yet for most of the world, this is never even
a consideration.  For most, a job isn’t about
personal fulfillment, it’s a way to survive. 
That means you take any job you can get, whether it’s digging ditches or
selling boxes of Kleenex on the side of the road.  And working in fast food?  That’s one of the better careers out
there. 

2.      The privilege
of reasonable commute time.  I’m currently visiting Los Angeles, which has the worst commute time in the United States.  But compared to the rest of the world?  It ranks 12th.  Out of the 50 cities worldwide with the worst commute times, America has only three. We also must consider that for most people in the world, getting to work isn’t in a private, air conditioned car with leather seats.  Imagine an hour or two–each direction–standing in a packed bus or train.  Every day.

3.      The
privilege of protecting your children. 
Every morning, I have watched children as young as four or five years old walking a mile to school along busy roads with no sidewalks.  Do their parents worry?  They certainly told me they do.  But since parents have their own hour-plus
commute every morning, and they can’t afford school bus fare, they don’t have
much of a choice. 

4.      The
privilege of seeing your children reach their potential.  Sports teams, music and art lessons, even
educational toys are all at our children’s fingertips.  Learning to read and write is an assumption,
and if we discover a particular talent in a child, we nurture it.  But in the majority of the world, this
doesn’t happen.  Children are often crowded
into classrooms of 50 or even 100, and books or other resources are scarce or
non-existent.  How many potential
Olympians, musical prodigies, or brilliant scientists are languishing in
developing countries, with no opportunity to develop their potential?

5.      The
privilege of food choices. 
Eliminating gluten, dairy, grains, peanuts, and meat, or switching to
organic food has become a popular way of improving health in western society.  But what you may not realize is that this is
a distinct privilege of living in a wealthy country.  Even in countries where food is not scarce, choice
is not an option.  Pesticides are a cheap
and easy way to increase crop production and are rarely regulated.  And in many countries, eliminating grains or
carbs means there would be hardly anything left to eat. 

6.      The
privilege of knowing why people die. 
Of course, having some of the best health care in the world means that in
wealthy countries, a lot less people die in the first place.  But when they do, at least we know why.  I can think of countless incidences in
East Africa of babies, children, or adults dying—sometimes falling over dead
after a short illness—and no one has any idea why.  Cancer? 
Heart attack?  Diabetes?  Maybe. 
Maybe not.  They will never
know. 

Of course, not every person in a wealthy country has all these privileges, and not every person in a developing country does not.  And there’s always people like me, who get the benefits of being from a wealthy country, even while living in a developing one.  The life I take for granted is not a reality for billions of people.  And coming to grips with my privileges has helped me to be more grateful, more content, and more eager to wisely use what I have been given. 

Transitioning

By

On April 12, 2017

In Other

It took less than 24 hours in America for me to feel like a complete idiot.

We arrived in California on Monday afternoon, and on Tuesday morning we headed to Target.  Because isn’t Target the reason we visit America?

The checker took my items and I swiped my credit card, proud of myself for remembering how to swipe a credit card.

“Oh, that’s a chip card,” the checker said.  “You need to put it in the bottom of the machine.”

I looked frantically for another place to stick my card.  I jammed it into the slot at the bottom of the machine and pulled it out.

“No,” the checker persisted.  “You have to leave it in there.”

Now I was totally flustered.  I stuck the card back in and accidentally pressed “cancel.”

Patiently, the checker (who was by now most certainly questioning my intelligence level), asked me to start over.

As I grabbed my things, I muttered, “So sorry….I’ve been living overseas for a long time…..”

Later that day, we went to the grocery store, and as I expertly stuck my chip card into the machine, signed it, and smiled confidently, I heard imaginary applause in my ears.  I had conquered.

Okay, people.  What else have I missed in the last three years?  Help a girl out here.

I always marvel during these transitions.  It just doesn’t seem possible that I can get on a plane for 24 hours and end up on a different planet as a different person in a different dimension.  That’s what it feels like.  And not only does my body think it’s still in Tanzania (as evidenced by intense jetlag), but my brain can’t keep up either.  I can’t remember what side of the car to get into.  I can’t remember where the bathroom light switch is, since it’s supposed to be outside the door–right?.  And if someone turns the lights out, I assume it’s a power cut.

My first-week thoughts are always convoluted and strange.  It doesn’t take long for me to adapt again to America and everything becomes routine.  But those few days at the beginning are particularly amusing.  So here you go:

The air feels awesome.  I noticed this immediately as we exited the airport.  Awesome, I tell you.  It’s like I had been living under a wet blanket for three years, and someone just pulled it off my head.  I have not sweat once since leaving Dar es Salaam.  My children, however, are shivering uncontrollably in the freezing 70 degree cold.  And skin and hair and lips look like we’re in the dead of winter in Minnesota.

Costco is still awesome.  Almost as awesome as the air.  And really, just as important, right?

Everything is so quiet.  Like, really, really quiet.  Even when I’m outside with the kids, I keep telling them to keep their voices down, like they are breaking a sacred silence.  Night is so quiet.  No screeching bats and birds and insects.  No wedding party music.  Rarely even any car sounds.  It’s eerie.

There are no people to be seen.  I go for a walk with my girls, and we marvel at the lack of life.  No people, anywhere.  Does anyone even live here?  they ask.  If you go into a store, there you see people.  But not on the street.  No food being sold on the street.  No goats on the street.  Where are all the people?  And the goats?  Don’t they want to enjoy this amazing air?

Everything is so easy.  I don’t have to navigate between languages.  I can read every street sign.  The roads are straight and flat and organized and drivers don’t drive on the shoulder.  Gil said with wonder, I’m going to see how many days I can go without using my horn.  All the food in the store is at least half-prepared.  The lawns water themselves.  The garage doors open themselves.  The dishes wash themselves.

Meal times are the most exciting part of the day.  Yes, it’s lunch!  I can eat again!  And I just went to Costco!

My children are obsessed with the ice dispenser on their uncle’s fridge.  By 10 am every day, that thing has been cleaned out.  However, they are paranoid about tap water and drinking fountains.  Yes, you can drink the water.  Are you sure, Mommy?  Yes, you can drink the water!

I need a sign around my neck, Bear with me; I haven’t lived in America for a while. I’m not sure how to handle you, America.  But I sure do love your air.  And Costco.

Johnny with his grandpa and cousin

The Medinas in Tanzania: A Primer

By

On April 6, 2017

In Other

Whenever we visit the States, there’s always that awkward moment in the church foyer when someone we know runs into us and says, “Hey, welcome back!  So….how’s it going…..over there?”

And it’s pretty obvious that they really don’t remember where we live or what we are doing.  

If this is you, first of all, don’t worry.  While you are frantically trying to remember the details about us, we are frantically trying to remember the details about you.  After all, you might have sent us your Christmas letter, but we didn’t memorize it.  We don’t expect you memorize everything we write about either.

So since we’ll be seeing many of you soon, here’s a summary to bring you up to speed.  If you want to send one to me as well, I would love to read it!

Where are you living?

source

We’ve lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for 13 of the last 16 years.  Dar es Salaam is coastal and near the equator, which means that it is hot and very humid most of the year.  It never gets cold.  (My kids start shivering at about 80 degrees.)  Lots of palm trees.  Just minutes from the ocean.  

Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania.  It has about 6 million residents and is rapidly growing.  We live in the northern part of the city, about five minutes from Haven of Peace Academy.


What is your life like?

We rent a three bedroom house which has electricity and plumbing (though using totally different systems than what you would be used to).  We have air conditioning in our bedroom.  I have a gas stove.  We own a generator.  We have one car.  

During the years we have been here, our standard of living has continued to improve.  We have a supermarket ten minutes away and we even have Pizza Hut.  Internet has continued to massively speed up, and this year, we’ve even been able to stream American TV shows.  We lack a lot of the conveniences of the States, but we are not suffering.  But maybe living thirteen years in a developing country has changed our perspective on what suffering is.


Are there lions?

Yes!  Tanzania has some of the world’s most amazing and beautiful game parks, including the Serengeti. (Gil took that picture!)  The closest reserve is about 5 hours drive away from us, so no, we don’t see wildlife on a regular basis, unless you include goats, chickens, and large lizards.  Oh, and hedgehogs.  And that snake that appeared in Lily’s bed.  But that was only once.

What is your ministry?

During the last three years, we have been partnering with Mark and Alyssa Dunker to establish Reach Tanzania Bible School, a theological training program for Tanzanian pastors and church leaders.  Students take 10 classes during one year, with each class lasting one week.  Students go back to their churches and ministries in between classes and apply what they have learned.

Gil also does a variety of training sessions in different churches and ministry programs.

Where do your kids go to school?

Just the best school in the entire world.  But I guess I’m biased, considering Gil and I served there for 10 years before we joined Reach Tanzania, and in August I’ll be going back on staff as Elementary Principal.

By the way, HOPAC is still recruiting teachers for next year, so if you know a teacher looking for the best job in the entire world, point him or her in my direction.

What are your kids’ names again?

Grace is eleven and in fifth grade.  She loves playing soccer and basketball, crafting and creating, and reading (her current favorites are the Percy Jackson series).  She is a total social butterfly and makes friends quickly.

Josiah is nine and in third grade.  He is a sports maniac.  His favorite is soccer and he can talk for hours about British Premier League soccer, but he is pretty much interested in any kind of competitive sport.

Lily is eight and in second grade.  She loves dolls and drawing and nurturing small children.

Johnny is five and will be starting kindergarten in August.  He is fascinated by vehicles of any kind but also loves puzzles and anything his siblings are doing.

How long will you be in the States?

Four months, until the beginning of August.  We will be all over California.  

Anything else you want to know? Ask away!  


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