almost a year

Has it really almost been a year since we moved to the US? Really?

I've thought about this a lot lately. There are days where it feels like we just arrived yesterday. There are days where 5 years in China feels like a dream. It's weird.

Yesterday, Mom, Raul and I went to up to Goshen, IN to see Kennedy, Maryann, and Tehillah who are in town for a few days and staying with a couple who are also former Nanjingren, the Dodds. We only spent 2 hours with them, but I'll tell you...it was something that (other than seeing Jamie) I had waited all summer for. Back in June when people asked what I was doing this summer, I included seeing some of my best friends in the last of activities. And I could hardly wait til the time came to see them. Yesterday as we were driving up Indiana 15 towards Goshen, I got more and more excited. I wondered how it would feel to see them "out of context", outside of China. It was the same when we saw Jamie. And it was the same 6 years ago when I saw a friend I'd made in Spain when we visited together in the US (she was also a short-term missionary there). It always feels strange seeing people outside of the foreign country where you met and spent so much time together. And it felt equally weird (good weird) when we saw the Mwenyas. The first to give me a hug was Tehillah, and y'all....I'd missed that little girl, and I still do. She's grown up so much, it's amazing. Then to hug her mom and dad...it felt like no time had past. You fall right back in sync, sharing China stories, catching up (though you've emailed each other back and forth for the past year), and it's as if time just kinda stands still for 2 hours.

Seeing them and Jamie a couple of weeks ago was exactly what our hearts needed. We love being here, but, as we said yesterday when Mrs. Dodd asked if we missed China, we miss the relationships immensely. We miss the NICF and the ministries there. We miss our students at NEIS. I miss my old students at CPU that I would still visit with from time to time.

In addition to missing the relationships in China... If I'm being honest, I miss the idea of China, that time in my life where I was a teacher overseas, part of a group of expats who move out of their home country who came back and was behind on some technology, pop culture, idioms, and all those things that make a person part of a culture. There are times where I don't like slipping back into my American-ness, where I dislike the consumerism, the politics, the "stuff marts", and some things that are quintisential America. I liked being in a country where I was an expat and was just able to live and observe the culture around me. Here, I feel like I'm sucked back in.

This probably all sounds horrible, but some who read this may understand. And I'm probably not expressing it well at all, so please don't misunderstand. I love my country, I love America and what it stands for, the hope it gives people who come here for opportunity and freedom. I love so many things about my country. But sometimes I wish I could go back.