This past week I had the unique opportunity to work at a missions training camp for an organization called the
World Race.
This group sends missionary teams to 11 countries in 11 months to do extreme missions and humanitarian work.
While I've never been on the World Race and do not intend to go I've known a lot of Racers from my time at G42, and from the fact that my parents were life coaches for many of the racers.
A group of Racers that were helping at as well with this camp have just gotten off the field, and a few have just returned from G42 and I noticed a lot of conversations about re-integration into American culture. This stirred up a lot of old feelings from when i first returned from
G42 and some conversations that I had with other racers/G42 alumni about coming back home. It also inspired me to write this blog detailing some of the symptoms of Integration and some antidotes.
The first of these is Exclusivity:
You just got back from the most amazing experience of your life with some of the most amazing people you've ever met, the majority of the American population isn't going to get what you've just experienced, nor are they going to get how you've changed. But don't worry it's not the end of the world. It's also not the first time some one has experienced something like this.
I found when I got home from Spain I found that I had a lot more in common with World Racers coming off the field than either of us realized. We were both used to seeing the miraculous move of God on a daily basis, and we both lived in a close community, and by close I mean close quarters, close friendships and often enough time shared close calls. I also found that we weren't the only two groups to experience this, I met a man in Nashville last year who had returned from military service in the middle east and as we got to talking we both realized we could relate to each other about our home coming experiences.
This can go to show you that your not the only one going through this, you aren't the only one that understands how you feel and there are lots of people who get you. It's okay to talk it out with some one who wasn't apart of your group, you never know who might be able to relate to you.
The next is Business:
Just because you've been gone for six months to a year doesn't mean you have to see every friend and distant relative in the first two weeks you get back. Take that nap you haven't been able to sneak in in your time away. Remember that book you started but weren't able to finish? Now may be a god time to start that.
A lot of times when you get home you feel restless, like you should be doing something all the time, but it's okay to take a deep breath and do something completely unrelated to missions for a while.
Another symptom is Abandonment:
This one comes about in two ways.
The first, the one I experienced is by feeling abandoned.
For me (just because of geographic location) I felt like every one had forgotten about me. I watched for months as every one was posting pictures on facebook where they were seeing one another again and reconnecting and I was stuck in the eastern corner of the states suffering out the summer with out any contact from my G42 classmates. Of course I tried my best to hide it and make my skype calls and claim that everything was fine, but I was suffering from serious abandonment issues.
But here is the good part, this doesn't last forever. Just like the sun doesn't stop shining when you close your eyes for a moment your friends haven't forgotten you just because you're not first person they see every morning. They are probably remembering the great times they had with you, but their busy living life. The best thing to do may be to turn off facebook and spend some time with the one who put you together with these friends in the first place. Jesus is the best comfort for abandonment, he'll bring the right people into your path at the right times and he knows when you need to stand on your own two feet.
The second abandonment symptom, which I know less about, is abandoning others.
Some times when you arrive home you're going to feel disconnected from every one else because your not with every one all the time any more. For this form of abandonment I would suggest just the opposite of the first antidote.
Turn of Facebook and connect, even though it may be as awkward as when you first met your community living partners, but, try to reconnect with them on the home front again. And as always spend time with Jesus, like I said above, he'll let you know who to talk to, and when to pull back.
One that I still have issues with is Over-Relation and Experience Regurgitation:
You have just experienced something incredible and now you want to tell every one about it.
Since I'm still dealing with this one, I'll leave this one short- you don't have to tell everyone about your trip/experience/life story. Just because you can relate doesn't mean you should regurgitate your entire story on them.
I can't think of any more right now, but I hope this kind of helped sort some things out. I know that it helped me to go over what I had experienced and keep in check what I might still be going through.
