Many of our readers will have had items of luggage not join us as we travel around the world. It can be a disorientating process, particularly if something we need or value doesn’t turn up. Some of us may also have got lost in transit ourselves, perhaps physically, or even emotionally. Often, as we move from one location to another, it can feel like something inside us hasn’t yet turned up. So we start to get on with life in a new place, with something important missing, perhaps not to arrive for a long time. It’s our sense of belonging.
When we go to a new mission field, we’re often engaged by a sense of calling, some excitement at a new start, and the enthusiasm of starting a new work. This can sustain us through the culture shock. But when we return to what was once our home, there is often nothing to help us with the reverse culture shock, particularly if we are going ‘home’ to retire, or we’re not sure what is coming next. We have a sense of endings rather than new beginnings. We may have a feeling that we’re being forced into this move rather than called. Fear may replace anticipation.
I find it helpful to think of this as a wilderness experience. Think of the Israelites going through the desert. They were going out from somewhere they knew and understood. They were going to somewhere that was rumoured to be special. But their current experience was of going through a place they didn’t belong in or understand.
They missed the food; now they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from them. They had been used to a plentiful water supply; now they never knew if they’d get water at all. It’s not surprising they grumbled, just as we can be prone to grumble during our re-entry process.
What we, like them, need to do is focus on what we do have – the presence of God with us in the wilderness. God led them through it. God provided them with security. God fed them and they heard the voice of God. They learned to walk with God in the wilderness, so much so that deserts became for them not a place of death but a place of retreat and spiritual activity. One of the Hebrew words for desert (they have several!) is midbar, which can also be translated as “He speaks”.
If you are going through your re-entry wilderness, be encouraged: it won’t last 40 years! Sometimes it can take a couple of years to be able to function in the new environment, maybe more if there is not much support for you in this process. But the really good thing about it is that our feelings of disorientation and alienation can actually spur us into a greater reliance on God through the transition.
Don’t die in the wilderness! Put your trust in God, and come out the other side like Caleb and Joshua did.
