Well it's officially almost been two weeks since I have been home. And while I love being home with my family and my friends, I do miss my immersion life. I miss my host families and my immersion family even more. It's a strange transition going from seeing a group of people almost every day to be suddenly separated from all of them. Modern technology allows us to still communicate with each other from time to time but I wish they were here with me. One of the things I wasn't expecting to struggle with is making decisions! During our trip, we would often fantasize about how great it will be when we could choose what food we wanted to eat and when we wanted to eat it and having more than our few outfits to choose from but now that I can, it's overwhelming! I just want to snuggle up with my t-shirts and have pizza delivered to my house so I don't have to go out into the real world. Thankfully, I have been able to keep myself busy by planning times with friends to catch up or I would probably become a hermit.
However, seeing people can still sometimes be a challenge. Especially when you want to try to sum up 6 months of your life into a coffee date. There's really not a very good way to do it. It's hard to describe what I experienced because it's all about the people I met. Not about how many buildings we built or how many projects we accomplished. It's all about the relationships we met, and when you go to a new place every couple of months, you meet a lot of people. And honestly, I don't know how well I impacted the people there. Of course I loved strangers like my family and tried to show the joy I have received from Christ to everyone I met, but I can never repay some of these families I met for how wonderful they made my experience. And maybe that's what we were supposed to learn. Sure, the places we went to did not have the technology and comforts we have in America. But when that all is gone, you get to see the beauty in these people's hearts. And that's what I will take away from this trip.
Being separated from your phone and computer for so long gives you the opportunity to spend a lot of talking to God, which is something that I unfortunately don't really spend a lot of time doing. It made me realize that maybe the times we feel like we don't hear God's voice is because we allow so much other stuff to block it out. But when we look in the Bible, those who really wanted to hear God's voice separated themselves from the distractions of this world so that they could hear Him. Jesus went and prayed by Himself. Elijah was taken up on the mountain so he could hear God. Sometimes God wants to tell us the next step He wants us to take in our lives. Or sometimes He just wants to tell us about someone who needs our prayers. Don't be afraid to listen.
