Depu-what?!
July 18, 2008
“Home Service” . . . “Deputation” . . . a friend of mine even had a family member who referred to it as “the dog and pony show” . . .
I came across this post today from a CRWRC person, and got a kick out of her idea of calling it “detox”. But I also like the way that she captures the struggles that people who live and work cross-culturally have to define what “home” is.
Our “MK’s in the making” heard a story during orientation called Grandfather’s Journey that I thought captured this ambiguity perfectly. In that faltering way I have when talking to young children about huge theological concepts that I can barely get my mind around myself, I tried to connect this concept of not knowing where “home” is with what the Bible tells us about this world not being our home . . .
I’m not sure I succeeded in communicating this to them, but I do try to console myself (and those whose concept of “home” is even harder to define than mine is) with the fact that our true home will be in heaven.
And although I have no theological training, and therefore don’t have any idea whether this concept of mine is truly biblical, I like to tell myself that heaven will be the place where everything we love about each of our “homes” will always be with us, that our homesickness will be no more.
Until that day, may we all wander well on whatever roads God may lead us down . . .
Entry Filed under: upside-down kingdom. Tags: already-not yet, CRCNA, CRWM, crwrc, culture shock, heaven, mk's, re-entry, tck's.
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Visitor | August 14, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Setting aside my inability to comprehend why your or any other organization would require their missionaries to “come home,” I would like to say that I appreciate the insight you have on:
[ not knowing where “home” is with what the Bible tells us about this world not being our home . . . ]
I like definition 6 for HOME from dictionary.com:
[any place of residence or refuge]
As Christians, our homes are each other’s homes, and any where we are where there are Christians we should *feel* at home… then why don’t we? Likely because of the fact that we are still human beings and are not all alike, even as Christians we can differ so much. Unfortunately I think we feel less and less at home, the less we try and look past our differences. If we start to re-focus on what we all have in common, maybe some of the home-sickness will subside too (heaven on earth??? as close as possible until the second coming anyway)