It Felt Like Coming Home

Or Thoughts of a Returning Missionary Upon Arrival on the Field Once Again.

As we flew back to the field, the kids were leaning forward, eagerly peering out the windows.  Below the clouds, hints of tropical forest covered ridges and ravines, sago swamps, and curving rivers go past.  This scene describes home to us.  It has become the adults’ home, but it is our kids’ home.  The hot moist air that blasts us when we step off the plane, isn’t foreign, it’s a welcome home hug.

Things that just a few years ago were foreign and different, have become usual and expected.  The red-eye birds sitting in the oil palm trees squabbling and chirping all day is as usual.  Sitting under fans dripping sweat as I write is usual.  Wearing flip-flops and shifting feet when you stop to talk to someone so that sand-fleas and mosquitoes won’t settle on you is usual.  Everyone carries a knife, as usual.  Women wear skirts and meri blouses as usual.  On the way to the center Kira exclaimed with joy, “I can spit again!”  And spitting anywhere (except in the house) is very usual.  So for us, it is back to life as usual.  It felt like coming home, and it was.