Missing
We’ve had absolutely lovely weather here the last three days, rainy, rainy, rainy. When sweltering, humid and hot days turn into rainy and 76 degree days, we adjust from being a slightly-irritable-in-the-late-afternoon-heat family to a relaxed-comfortable-non-sweating-happy-family. I think our lawn is officially saturated now and the trees look almost inches taller than they did over the weekend…it’s wonderful. I’m going to miss this place while we’re home.
I’m starting to think more about what it will be like to be away from Thailand for 6 months and am starting to get familiar with the routine. It goes something like this; As soon as I am in America, I become homesick for Thailand. The opposite is true as well, as soon as I am in Thailand, I am homesick for America. Something happens when you live overseas for an extended period of time. Somehow the smells, the scenery, the thoughts and way of life become a part of who you are. I get that feeling whenever I step out of the airport in Bangkok onto the city streets. The powerful smell of fish sauce assaults my nostrils, and yet smells almost sweet, familiar in a strangely foreign way. To me Thailand symbolizes a lot of things. It’s the first country outside of the U.S. that I’ve really truly experienced. I’ve learned the language, developed a taste for the food, become familiar with a portion of the myriad of cultural complexities. Thailand is also the first place where I felt called by the Lord to serve, to follow Him here despite leaving so many precious people behind. Thailand is where I met Jeremy, where we dated, became engaged and now where we’ve lived as a married couple for more than 5 of our 6 years of marriage. Thailand is where I became a mom for the first and second time. It’s where I’ve raised my children for almost the entirety of their lives. This country holds such dear memories for me.
I’ll miss the smell of humidity, the wetness that permeates every fiber of our home and every pore on our person. Right now it’s 76 degrees. I almost feel a little too cool. Last night when I went to bed I noticed the temperature in our bedroom was about 84. “It feels cool”, I thought, “we can go without the fan tonight.” I’m having these visions of myself in 3 layers of long underwear in the first month of October. It feels as though even my internal temperature has changed after living here for the better part of the last 8 years.
I’ll miss the people. We have lots of acquaintances here. Many people know us as the “foreign family” or the “family who likes bike riding”. There are a few whom we’ve poured precious time and energy into, and it’s those friends who we’ll think of and miss the most. There’s Sing and his family who live up on the mountain. Their house sits on a precipice that affords a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys where our family lives and also into the surrounding countryside of Laos. It’s not a luxury house that they live in though, nor are their lives easy and comfortable. I’ve learned a lot from Sing’s family about contentment. Could I learn to be happy in a simple cement block house, with not a stitch of paint? Would I be content with a kitchen that has bamboo for walls? What if my bathroom floor was at a pitched angle and there was no shower stall, only a bucket of cold water with a dipper? Am I mature enough to rejoice in the Lord, enjoying life no matter what kind of home I’m living in? I still ponder these questions whenever I visit this family because there’s a part of me that longs to be above the trap of comfort and yet I so often can’t quite get past myself. I’ll miss that family and what they’ve taught me about simplicity, dignity and their own trust and faith in Christ.
I’ll miss the sense of purpose that we have while we’re in Thailand. Our day to day job is almost stripped from us when we return to the States and we spend our time talking about our time here, rather than living it. It’s a facet of our life that seems to go on the shelf for the majority of our time at home. We have multiple opportunities to share in church, with our supporters and our family about our life and ministry here- and yet we know it becomes old hat to those who hear it over and over again. So when we miss life here, Jeremy and I open up and chat in the Thai/English dialect that we’ve developed between ourselves.
Thailand is a part of who I am now. I’ve experienced some of the greatest joys and trials of my life here, and those memories are inextricably wound up in the tropical humidity, the rice and rainstorms of northern Thailand.
But what will I miss the most? The mangoes……they just don’t make them the same in the Americas……..
