Culture Shock

At this point in the story I want to pause and talk a bit about the emotional impact of the trip.  So far  I have given detailed descriptions of our activities and surroundings, but I have talked little about the emotional climate of the group.  There is a lot going on beneath the surface in the human heart that we seldom see.  But given enough time, enough stress, enough feelings of being overwhelmed, and things just begin to bubble to the surface.  Its a bit like watching water begin topping a dam.....

Remember the composition of this group.  Fifteen high school and college age kids and 8 adults- only two of whom have raised kids thru the teen years.  For some of these kids it was their first time on a plane.  For others is was their first time out of the US.  For others it was their first time to a third world country.  For me- it was the first international mission trip that I have ever been on under primative conditions (ie camping, no running water, no electricity, no hot showers, no flushing toilets, etc).  There was a lot to adapt to!  By Sunday night after our long day at church, we returned to our hotel, collected our belongings, and took a ride out to the SLAM camp to begin the process of pitching our tents in the rapidly approaching darkness.  Thank goodness for some of our boyscout lads!  They got those tents up in no time!  Our tent assignments were made and after evening Bible study and worship, followed by a Raleigh team meeting, and an adult leaders meeting, we settled into our tents with some of the kids. 

What was becoming apparent to some of the adult leaders at this point was that many of the kids were really struggling and homesick.  But what to do about it?  It's not like any of them could pick up the phone and call home.  No one could call up mom and dad and asked to be picked up.  There was no changing the living conditions or the length of the trip.  We all just had to cope.  So- we could tell the kids to just get over it- they knew what they were signing up for when they volunteered  (we did indeed, but the fact of the matter is that head knowledge of something and the actual sensory experience of it are two entirely different things!) or- we could offer a listening ear and some coping strategies.  The truth is we did some of both of these things.

One of the other adult leaders and myself had some quiet side conversations with several of the girls.  I was surprised that even those who seemed to be in good spirits readily opened up and admitted that they wanted nothing more than to go home right now!  What I became aware of was the most of them were putting on a brave face because they did not want to disappoint anyone.  I knew that a couple of the boys were feeling this way as well. The truth of the matter is that after 72 hours on the ground we were still jet lagged and we had been bombarded and sensory overloaded.  We were kept up our first night there till nearly midnight with Bible study about prisoners.  We had been to a prison and to an all day Church service.  We were eating strange foods and living in accommodations that frankly,  just creeped out even the adults.  We were seeing large swaths of this country thru long bus rides daily that were one unrelenting imagine of extreme poverty after another.  It's enough to make you......long for home!  Homesickness, I decided, was probably completely normal at this stage of the game.

So what I told the girls was this:  It's okay that you feel this way.  I feel this way too and I am a lot older and have been on these kinds of trips before.  But what I knew for sure was that we had an entire week to go. And if we allowed this mindset to take hold too much we would miss what God had brought us here to experience.  So my advice was to keep their chins up.  To try not to focus their thoughts on home, but rather instead, to live in each moment, to take one day at a time.  I also knew that once these kids could get their hands dirty and start doing some real work that they would feel good about themselves.  That they would see some merit to their efforts.  That they would stop questioning why they had come.  Having seen the joy on a family's face when they move into a new home at the end of the week, I had some experience from my past Mexico trips to draw on. I knew that feeling at week's end.  The kids did not.  I wanted them to hold on till they could have this experience for themselves.

Our low point mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, I believe was on Sunday night and into Monday.  After this, what I began to sense was a turning point.  It's not that we did not still complain about stuff.  We all still hated the Cho.  But we could laugh about it now.  We began to talk about our new friends and the families we were serving with excitement.  We wanted to work as hard and as fast and as long as possible so we could get many things done to help our families.  The kids began to speak with pride about all that they had accomplished at their work sites.  I saw new friendships begin to bloom with the Kenyan and Ugandan youths.  In short- we all began to adapt.  We had a lot of prayer being offered up for us by family and friends during our time away.  I think those prayers helped us over this hump.  It's nonsense to suggest that you can take a group this size halfway around the world and dump them in a place that feels as foreign as the surface of the moon and not have adjustment issues.  The point, however, is that these things can be weathered for the most part.  You just have to hang on and trust that the God who called you for His purposes isn't about to abandon you during your hour of need.  He stayed with us.  We drew near to Him.  Good things are in store if you can but believe this.  As we were about to see.....More later.......Shalom!