There is an added layer of craziness when the language that is spoken all around me is not my own. It has been an exhilarating and exhausting week of work, and sickness, and friendships formed, and preconceptions shattered, and watching God move in Honduras. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Really. And I will come back if the opportunity ever presents itself. But after 7 long days out of "The States," I am ready to go home.
There are 14 of us conspicuous-looking Americans (though much less conspicuous after 7 days abroad), and many of us are minors. Most of the grown-ups are slightly worn down after this week but the adrenaline starts pumping as we stand in clusters at the airport, checking bags, double-checking the flight status, triple checking the time on our wrist watches. So many things can go wrong when one person travels. Throw in a handful of teenagers and a foreign country, and disaster can fall in any of a multitude of ways.
We vaguely and half-jokingly discuss what we'll do if a flight gets cancelled or someone doesn't get through customs. I tell someone, "I don't care WHAT happens as long as this plane get me to 'The States.' I can take it from there no matter where I am." I said it with a smile but I was dead serious. I didn't care if the plane got grounded in Ft. Lauderdale or Seattle or Timbucktoo. I didn't care if we missed our connecting flight out of Houston and had to rent a car. I would be home and I could make it the rest of the way. WHATEVER. I'd be home. Even if I was still 1,500 miles away, I'd be home. Do you get what I'm saying here? After being out of the country for a week I was never so glad to be born an American citizen and get to call this great place home. And I couldn't wait to be on American soil again where the language was mine, the roads were recognizable, the bathrooms had toilet paper in them, and all that good American stuff. Home.
Is there a sweeter word in the English language when one has been away for a while? It instills such a longing for that which is warm, nostalgic, and familiar. It's a place where you know you belong. Where you're welcome. Where you're accepted even though you were an idiot when you were a teenager and cringe to think of the dumb things you did while you were there. You still want to go home and feel that comfort, that loving embrace, eat that meal that only your mom makes, see that little potpourri on the back of the toilet that's been there longer than you can remember.
The airplane in Tegucigalpa took off on time and it got us to Houston on schedule. I rushed through the International Arrivals hallway with the rest of my group, searching desperately for a bathroom since some of us were still dropping off little burning Honduran deposits. Who cares?! We were HOME!!! It looked like America, it sounded like America, it felt like America. I handed my American passport to the customs guy with pride while he flipped through it, looking a bit bored, stamped it, and handed it back to me. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and say, "Wake up, man, and show a little pride! You're an American! You're the luckiest guy on earth!"
And then my prophecy came true. The inevitable happened and we all missed our connecting flight. Seriously. How the heck are 14 people supposed to claim their bags, go through customs, recheck their bags, and get themselves two terminals away in 45 minutes? Not gonna happen. After being shuffled around for hours, we were told we would be staying the night in Houston and would leave bright and early the next morning. Who cares?! We were HOME!!
I thought about that story a lot as I came to the end of my Genesis study. It is the story of a people who long for home. They all had to leave for one reason or another. Adam and Eve left Eden. Abraham left Ur, Lot left Sodom, Jacob left his parent's home after lying to his father and royally ticking off his brother, Joseph was taken out of Canaan and lived 93 of his 110 years as a foreigner in Egypt.
After 7 days in another country, I just cannot fathom the longing he must have had. He had one chance in all those years to go back home. He was allowed to return and bury his father, Jacob. And then he had to turn around and go right back to Egypt. That must have been a pretty excruciating promise to keep.
He is not the only Hebrew who never got to go back home. There were the stubborn wanderers who waited to enter the Promised Land and never made it, Daniel spent a lifetime in exile, as did the rest of his generation. And even though the New Testament 1st Century Jews were technically "home" they lived in a Roman outpost under Roman authority, and were never more miserable. Even today God's people continually fight for what they believe to be their home. I am not even dipping my toes into THAT debate, except to say that I have come to understand that there is no place on this earth--not a single place--that is truly home.
As good as it felt to be in America that day, I wasn't really home. For though I was born in this body as an American citizen, what I REALLY am, is a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20). What I felt when I walked through the International Arrivals hallway in Houston is a faint glimmer of what I will feel when I get to heaven. What I feel when I walk in the house I grew up in and smell the familiar food cooking on the stove and see the same old décor up on the walls in that place where I belong--that is NOTHING compared with heaven.
It is dangerous to get so attached to a place on this earth that you are afraid to leave. God still had work for Joseph to do in Egypt and even though it felt to Joseph like following God meant moving backwards, he was obedient to that and his life ended well. He finished by passing on the eternal mindset to the next generation that they weren't home. Not yet.
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I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please comment if you feel led and I will do my best to answer it. -R