Life...

It's been 8 months... I feel unworthy to write the following given
families that have been here for 25 years.

When you pick up your life and move it out of the country for awhile,
you know the two biggest things you are leaving.... family and
friends. You have prepared your mind that when you get off the plane
to wherever it is you're going, that familiar faces are probably not
going to be there. So, as I miss these things the most out of
everything (even though I have acquired friends here and a sense of
family here), it's the smallest of things that seem to start adding
up... these luxuries I once had before that start to wear on you a
little bit. Sometimes, I want to drive my own car to a gas station
just so I can go inside and get a bunch of junk food from the aisle
and go on a road trip... or go pick up a friend and go to a restaurant
like Chili's... Taco Bell... Jimmy John's. I don't want people
yelling at me, "Hey Baby, take me to America" any longer. I don't want
to walk into my house another day after seeing hundreds of people
sleeping on the street. Sometimes, you want your culture... your car,
your own kind of food, your own wireless internet, your rights and
culture as an American that you have forfeited when you got on the
plane. In your mind, living overseas is this wild fantasy that
becomes an adventure. And I will tell you, living here is a daily
adventure... but it's not always pretty, it's not always fun, and it's
definitely not how you always pictured it in your head. It's a
different world, though, that allows my mind and heart to completely
transform given this experience... and when you look at it that way...
when you have the right mindset and heart, you remember that it's not
at all about what you miss or "gave up" or what you have and don't
have... none of that matters. Nothing matters except the day you have
been given to love God by daily submitting your heart to His and
loving people the way Jesus loved people, wherever you live. And when
you view that one day in the realm of all eternity... anything that
you have remotely missed ceases to matter and you find yourself freed
and satisfied by God.