Week 3 Stateside

Greetings from the US!  We have been back for two and a half weeks.  These days have been completely full.  Not necessarily full of activities and running around, but full of emotions, processing our new life and culture, and figuring out how to make things work.  America is the land of choice, so nothing is coming as easy at one might expect.  This is a very normal part of “reentry” – the process of returning to one’s “home” culture. “Home” is still a strange word to us, too.

Overall, we are doing really well.  We are enjoying being back, melting in the Idaho heat (it was over 100F/37C our first week, and in the 90’s/mid-30’s since), though being a dry heat makes it far more tolerable than Congo’s dense humidity.  We are really excited to back at our church and with our HQ MAF family and have really felt welcomed.  Of course, our family enjoys us being on the same continent, or in the case of my parents, in the same house.

We are still staying with my parents, as we process the busy-ness of life and refinish some of our floors.  Three sets of renters on old wood floors demanded a new finish.  But a new finish is easier placed without furniture and twelve feet running over it.

Not that we’ve had much time to think about setting up a house anyway.  Our first few days were in the fog of jet lag, though we didn’t experience a single midnight party session.  Then we went with our church to a campout in the woods of the middle of Idaho for a few days.  The day after we got back, we launched into many appointments as part of the reentry process for MAF.  It has been good to go over what we’ve done and where we are going, as well as check out with medical and psychology professionals to make sure we are healthy.  So far, so good!  In between those appointments, we have been meeting for craigslist furniture for our house (just starting with basics – beds and living room seating), meeting with insurance people, and having some fun with friends.

It’s been a whirlwind and every single evening this past week I’ve sat down and told Matthew, “I HAVE to blog tonight – I’ve been thinking all day about what I want to convey about our reentry” and every single night I’ve stared at the blank WordPress page barely getting my thoughts together.

The choices are exhausting.  And helping four children process the new life we have here is exhausting.  And balancing every single experience being sort of new is exhausting.  While we are having fun and feel good about being back, our brains are tired by the end of the day when the kids have gone to bed and I have the mental space to write, so I don’t.  I hope to be back at it soon!  I really do have things to say as I compare life here and there, or even just tell the story about how I went to put gas in the car for the first time in over three years and totally forgot what to do and had to leave without it.  Yep.  It was amusing, but when I tried to write about it, it just came out sad.  Ha!

We aren’t sad about the silliness and exhaustion of reentry and adjusting to this different culture.  We find it fascinating and hilarious.  Seeing the contrast, experiencing the quiet of the neighborhood and the fast driving on the highway – these are things that deserve to be written…but written about well.

I’ll leave you with an anecdotal example from today.  We drove by the highway exit closest to our house and we passed what will soon be a Dutch Bros coffee drive through.  I squealed with excitement at the thought of this treat and the kids all asked what I was excited about.  I pointed to the building that was going up and said, “See that building?  That will be a coffee stand.”

Amelia muttered from the back seat, “You told me stands were illegal here!”

I thought a moment about it before remembering our first day back, as we drove around town, Amelia pointed out that the sidewalks and streets weren’t dotted with stands – small wooden tables, with colorful umbrellas, and vendors selling everything from tissues, to phone credits, to shoes.  I explained that pop-up stands are generally illegal and she wouldn’t find those here.  Obviously, her memories from Congo, her sense of normal expectations, and my explanation were taken to heart.  Oh my, what a work we have ahead of us and these kids see their world and culture so differently from how Matthew and I see it.

Many of you have welcomed us back – and we are so grateful for that welcome – but to my kids, this isn’t much of “back” as much as it is just a “welcome.”  I am amazed at how well they are doing and how much they seem to like life here so far.  Please continue to pray for them, and for us, that we will keep their context right in front of us as we experience these changes together.

Oh, and I did figure out gas.  It wasn’t that hard.  But me parallel parking that van today…well, let’s just say, I don’t need to write about everything!