Or Thoughts of a Returning Missionary Upon Arrival on the Field Once Again.<\/p>\n
As we flew back to the field, the kids were leaning forward, eagerly peering out the windows.\u00a0 Below the clouds, hints of tropical forest covered ridges and ravines, sago swamps, and curving rivers go past.\u00a0 This scene describes home to us.\u00a0 It has become the adults’ home, but it is our kids’ home.\u00a0 The hot moist air that blasts us when we step off the plane, isn’t foreign, it’s a welcome home hug.<\/p>\n
Things that just a few years ago were foreign and different, have become usual and expected.\u00a0 The red-eye birds sitting in the oil palm trees squabbling and chirping all day is as usual.\u00a0 Sitting under fans dripping sweat as I write is usual.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Everyone carries a knife, as usual.\u00a0 Women wear skirts and meri blouses as usual.\u00a0 On the way to the center Kira exclaimed with joy, “I can spit again!”\u00a0 And spitting anywhere (except in the house) is very usual.\u00a0 So for us, it is back to life as usual.\u00a0 It felt like coming home, and it was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The hot moist air that blasts us when we step off the plane, isn’t foreign, it’s a welcome home hug. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":799,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[125,1634,3],"tags":[6810,363,821,638,2477,2476,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-23","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture","7":"category-daily-life","8":"category-family","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-home","11":"tag-home-assignment","12":"tag-papua-new-guinea","13":"tag-spitting","14":"tag-third-culture-kids","15":"tag-travel","16":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/799"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}