Recently an article was published in CM Alliance.ca which is the magazine of our church denomination CM&A. It was very interesting to us since we are going on home assignment for the first time. Here is an excerpt:
Here is a peek into our minds to provide you with a window of understanding, insight to support International Workers in prayer, and knowledge to walk with us when we return. With mixed emotions we wonder: Will you want to know what God is doing in our country? Will we have more than a two-minute window to share our story with you?
Conversations may be awkward at first but we hunger for real connection; we thirst for deep discussions.
In many ways Canada will not feel like home anymore. We know life has gone on without us. We are now the outsiders, needing time to process cultural shock. And when we leave to return to our mission field we will relive our grief of saying “Goodbye” all over again.
When we return to Canada, we come face-to-face with what we left behind. we realize that during our time away, we have had a loss of family communication-physical, emotional,mental and spiritual. As our parents age, we wish we could have more time with them. Sometimes family members are in crisis and we’re in anguish when we cannot be there.
We often miss our favourite foods and styles of clothing. we’ve lost our cultural identity, realizing that neither Canada nor our new country takes precedence. We may miss our belongings, items that had memories attached to them.
There is also much we have gained. God has given us the opportunity to be an extension of the people who send us. We love the people and are excited about the chance to serve them. When we return on home assignment, our desire is to build stronger relationships! So even thought we have faced the absence of some of life’s blessings, we have gained much more by experiencing God in a depth our family may never have known in Canada.
An interesting article written by Linda Doell, she is an International Worker serving alongside her husband, Curtis, in the Caribbean Sun Region. To read more http://www.cmacan.org/magazine
Teaching Adventures 