Tongue-Tied

I am not usually at a loss for words, at least when it comes to writing. Yet in the past three weeks since stepping off the Piper plane onto the tarmac of the Lancaster Regional Airport, I’ve struggled knowing how to articulate, even in writing, an answer to the question, “So how does it feel to be home, Katelyn?”

It’s scary - how displaced and detached one can feel when it comes to reconciling the changes between the environment, the experiences, the culture, the responsibilities, and the people you were surrounded with just a short time ago with where you find yourself presently.

In Thailand, I had a role to fill, a job description, a schedule of responsibilities, a ministry I functioned under, a focus in what I was doing and who I was serving. To be certain, there were definitely those moments of unpredictability as well as the stressors of situations which never appeared in the staff manual under “Duties of the Ladies’ Dean.” Even in all that, I still had the encouragement and support of friends who became like family, and I felt a sense of belonging and purpose in where God had called me. There was something about all this which offered me more stability and security than I had realized, until life as I knew it for the greater part of the past two years disappeared from sight as the jet climbed higher into the inky darkness of the midnight skies.

It wasn’t until the first Korean flight, when I was the person in the window seat of Row 42, watching the lights of Chiang Mai until they faded into tiny pin pricks against the black shadows of the mountains, that this sense of aloneness and weakness overtook me. Grateful for the dimmed lights of the cabin, I let the tears fall.

The past year had been so fulfilling. God had taught more about His strength perfected in my nothingness, and I could testify that even in the difficulties, He had been faithful and He had been my Rock. The year had stretched me spiritually, emotionally, and at times, physically. Yet it had been a year so rich in experiences, and most of all, rich in relationships.

Now, once again, I had to uproot and move on. Three years ago, when the plane had lifted from the runway of the Chiang Mai airport and I said good-bye to Thailand for the first time, God impressed upon me the verse from Genesis 28:15, “Behold I am with you and will keep you…and will bring you back to this land.”  

This time, I struggled with feeling like that promise had been given and now had been fulfilled, so this must be it. That thought stirred an unwelcomed ache within my heart: what if this time I am leaving, never to return?

I believe that I am supposed to be here with my family in a community where traditions rooted in Pennsylvania German culture intersect with the multi-racial populations of expanding cities like Lancaster or Reading. But it is one thing to realize that this is where I am supposed to be for now, and yet that realization does not always ease the restless longing within for dreams that feel unfinished, visions that seem undone, and a place that is half-a-world away while still closely residing in my heart.

It’s humbling, admitting that I don’t have it all together. In the lyrics of Twila Paris, “Lately I’ve been winning battles left and right, but even soldiers can get wounded in the fight. People say that I’m amazing, strong beyond my years, but they don’t see the enemies who lay me at His feet. And they don’t know who picks me up when no one is around… I drop my sword and cry for just a while, ‘cause deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child.”

The sword feels heavy right now, and I am weary of fighting enemies that I thought had already been defeated once and for all. Re-entry is hard. Harder than I had thought, actually. Yet it is easy for me to use the adjustments of re-entry as a smoke screen for what lies at the root of the struggle.  Raw honesty leaves me no other option except to confess that I know that a lot of the numbness, discouragement and apathy that I am experiencing right now exist because I am struggling with surrender.  Over a year and a half ago, I had signed my name on the bottom of a blank sheet of paper, as a sign of commitment to God to say “Yes” to whatever He future plans He had for me, even before I knew what they were to be.

Today, I look at what He is writing on that page for me, and I don’t always like it. I want to take the pen, and somehow add some fine print at the bottom, a disclaimer or a subtle compromise to make this whole thing of “selling out” a little more comfortable.

But.

The commitment has already been made. I don’t want to put my hand to the plow and look back. I don’t want to regress to waving the flag of defeat in the Enemy’s territory and give up ground that was never meant for him to have. I don’t want to come to the end of this season of life and regret living it out of a sense of dutiful submission rather than joyful surrender.

Perhaps I’m not as tongue-tied as I thought. Or maybe, trying to define the struggle with words - as fragmented and imperfect as they are - is the first hesitant step to return to that Altar of Surrender.

The Why of the What

A dozen days ago, I boarded the eight-seater Piper plane as the lone passenger with two pilots. That flight was only the first stretch of the long journey from the rolling, barren hills of Lancaster, PA, to touchdown on the runway rimmed by the hazy blue-green mountains of Chiang Mai, Thailand. 

Once we got past the bumpy take-off, the view from the very, very small plane was actually quite scenic.

 From here to there and back again. It is an odd feeling to have your heart suspended between two different worlds, to be at home in both, and yet to still have that unquenchable yearning for eternal Eden…

Last December 20^th, I think my homecoming at JFK airport was so jubilant that even security may have been getting suspicious of all the commotion. Thankfully, we were not apprehended ~ and my time at home was rich, hectic, hard, and refreshing.

During the next three months, I savored each minute with my two year old nephew who now imitates every word he hears and who fascinates me with his energetic way of living life with all the wonder of a child. Once more I donned my scrubs and dusted off my stethoscope and loved every minute of diving back into work at Cornerstone Family Health nestled in small-town Lititz. 

My family and I shared laughter and tears that knitted our hearts together in even deeper ways, and I marveled again at how they put up with my idiosyncrasies, odd habits, and sarcastic sense of humor. I shopped out of my sister’s closet, disagreed with her sense of direction (which is just as bad as mine), and taught her to make Thai-style iced coffee while we finished each other’s sentences. 

 

Snowflakes made me as giddy as a little kid, and I thought the fluffy white stuff was beautiful even if the calendar said it should be spring. Once again, I ate real cheese and swirled half-and-half in my morning coffee.  I reconnected with friends over steaming latte’s in quaint café’s and watched children who were being burped and swaddled only eight months ago now toddle down the aisle at church. 

I struggled to make time for my devotions and at times felt burdened by the weight of discouragement and troubling circumstances. Some days, I felt mixed up inside, wondering where I truly belong and wishing I knew what the future held.  But woven throughout the difficult and the delightful was the loving support of so many people and the faithful leading and provision of my Abba. Every day was a gift...

So that is the long nut-shell version of the what. It is the “Why are you going back? “question that I’ve been asked numerous times since leaving Thailand last Christmas. I don’t blame you for asking. It is unnatural to leave your job, your family, your community, and your tidy little bubble within a familiar culture that is a woven into your very fiber and that shaped from birth your initial point of reference for how the rest of the world goes around. 

For some reason, the Lord has chosen to give me a tip-of-the-iceberg glimpse of how many people of the rest of the world actually live, often without having ever heard of Jesus Christ. This is not because I am someone special or that I deserve the opportunity more than another; but I believe that He has granted these glimpses to me as a sacred responsibility. What will I do with all that I have been given, both physically and spiritually? 

Out of that responsibility, God has opened up a door of new opportunity. This time, I returned to Thailand to serve as staff at IGo, the very same training institute where I spent a total of twelve months as a student and then as an intern over the course of 2 ½ years.  A year ago, I would have laughed and said, “Absolutely not!” if you had told me that I would be coming back to Thailand and taking on the position as dean of women. At times when I think about the incredible responsibility of this task, I still find it both amusing and terrifying that God would call me to something so different from what I had expected or have ever done. 

Of two things I am assured: He has a benevolent sense of humor and a way of knocking out all props from under us so that we can do nothing else except run to Him. 

So that is the why behind the what, folks. 

The students I will be serving are girls just like myself, making a big leap into the scary unknown of living in a foreign culture and desiring to learn more about knowing our God and making Him known in all the earth.  If in some small way I can play a role of supporting them in this journey to discovering more of God and His heart for all people, it will only be because of His power in my weakness and an outflow of what Jesus has done for me.

Dei Gratia

{By the grace of God}

Closing Thoughts

As I sit in the bustling lounge of the Singapore Airport, awareness of my surroundings of palm trees, faces and languages of many nationalities, and tantalizing food courts fade into the meanderings and musings of thoughts pulled in a hundred different directions. Hundreds of pictures, memories etched upon my mind and journal entries are all that I have left as tangible reminders of the past eight months. I know that with time, even the memories will become more blurred and distant, the pictures themselves will be archived on my laptop {hopefully} for a future photo book project, and my journal will be tucked away with all its predecessors.

So is that all? Is that what the experiences of the past eight months condense themselves into? Do I go home and return to life as I knew it before living in Asia for an extended period of time?

Or have I allowed God to perform irreversible change in my life? Instead of clinging to my expectations and ideals and resisting the work that He wanted to do in my life, have I truly experienced His Presence by offering myself in brokenness and surrender and being transformed in ways that I could take no credit for? 

I am still processing those questions. Honestly, I don't think I will arrive at any clear cut answers to those thoughts but instead trust that the work that God has begun He will bring to completion even in ways I do not see. 

In reflection of the past eight months, was it worth it? 

On our last day of volunteering at Mae Sot General Hospital, the head nurse in charge of the entire hospital asked through a translator, "why did you quit your nursing job, leave your family, and come all the way to Thailand to live and to study?" 

The pointedness of the question almost caught me off guard. When I really stop to think about it, what was at the core of why I left my family, quit a job I loved, endured sweltering heat living in a dorm with more than a dozen other girls, lost sleep over term assignments, ate unusual foods and spent several months interacting with communities of Burmese refugees? 

Fumbling for words, I was having a difficult time framing my thoughts into what I figured would be a logical response that would satisfy her curiosity. After all, this is a Buddhist lady, so "Bible schools" and "missionary training" are completely foreign concepts to her.  

Before I could even finish my reply, Pii Ophelia responded for me. Pii Ophelia is the nurse manager of the special care nursery where we had volunteered for the past two months, and she had taken Melanie & me under her wing and befriended us even outside of the hospital setting. A devoted Buddhist herself, Pii Ophelia had seemed accepting of our faith but not obviously interested beyond asking a few simple questions. 

Ophelia turned away from the hospital head nurse she had been translating for and looked straight into my eyes. In her heavily accented English, she matter-of-factly says, "It's all for God. Yes? All for God." 

Without missing a beat, she turns to the other nurse and rattles off a row in Thai, of which I could understand the word "Pra Jao" which translates into "God." 

I smiled and excitedly nodded my head in agreement. "Yes, Pii Ophelia, you are exactly right! It is all for God. That is why we are here. To learn more about Him and to show His love to everyone we meet."  

In one simple statement, my Buddhist friend had just put into words the real reason why I have spent the last eight months on the other side of the world. 

I couldn't have said it better. 

(L to R) Pii Ophelia, myself, the hospital head nurse, and Melanie

I want that to be a statement of life purpose, whether it applies to the war-torn refugees of Mae Sot, Thailand, the bar girls and familiar streets of Chiang Mai, or my hometown and neighbors amidst the fields of Mennonite farms and Amish horse and buggies. No matter where I am this coming year, "It's all for God."

So with bittersweet good-byes and a tugging at my heart, this chapter of my life draws to a close. A chapter that God has written with unexpected plots, pages smeared with my tears, lines of laughter, and paragraphs of blessing. His Goodness and His Faithfulness is written all over it, and He alone is worthy of receiving glory for what was and for holding the pen to author what is to come... 

 

 

 

Dear friends & my mentoring group for 2nd Semester. In 2010, we were students together at IGo, so it was such a gift to be able to all return two years later to do various internships in three different parts of Asia. Thank you, ladies, for showing me what it looks like to live a life that's "all for God"!