The farthest and longest I've traveled was three years ago when I spent six weeks in Moldova, a small, Eastern European country tucked between Romania and Ukraine. I went to Moldova two times before that on a short-term mission trip with my church. That is how I had the opportunity to go as an intern with the missionaries in Moldova.
Each time I went to Moldova, the biggest change was in my heart. Every time I came back to the States, I found it difficult to to communicate to people about what happened in my heart while I was there. All three times I went to Moldova, it prepared me for the next step in my life back home. The last and longest time in Moldova prepared me for more leadership back home and moving into an apartment with four other girls a year later, and I find myself still learning new things from my time there. As college graduation is drawing near, I can't help but reflect on all the questions that ran through my mind from when I first took a giant leap of faith across the ocean.
Somehow I don't think I am the only one with these questions:
Will I have community in the city, State, or country that God calls me to?
Will I be able to adjust well to the new culture?
Will I be able to speak the language?
Will I be able to support myself?
Will friends and family back home forget about me?
Will my church family remember me?
Will I have a church community there?
Will everyone back home move on with their lives while I'm away?
Will I have community when I return?
Will I be able to readjust back to "normal" life in the States?
Will everyone at home be engaged or married?
Will I be the only one still single? (Will there be any single, godly men left?)
Will my heart change so much that I will no longer "fit in" with my home culture?
Will my heart ache too much to stay in the culture I was sent, or will it hurt too much to be away from the place I've called home for 25 years?
So many thoughts, so many questions.
I know some of those questions are silly, but they are real and scary to a traveler's heart. The only thing I can do with those questions is to pray earnestly and give my worries to the Lord. If God calls me to go somewhere, He will provide for my physical, relational, emotional, and spiritual needs when I am going and returning. God has given me community so I will have prayer warriors behind me for when I go and when I return.
I conclude with a challenge for those who may not have traveled yet to another culture, or who knows someone who has.
If you know someone who has just gotten back from a short-term or long-term trip, call them up or meet up with them for coffee. I guarantee that they need someone who will (or even wants to) listen to them talk about their time away. You may not be able to relate to their experiences, but you can help them with their re-entry into their home culture. And don't be closed off to learning from their experiences or being challenged to go on a cross-cultural trip one day.
Wherever you go—to work, to school, to church, to soccer practice, to the grocery store, across the country or across the world—see it as an adventure. After all, "not all those who wander are lost" (J.R.R. Tolkien). Every day you wake up, you are entering your mission field.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe (obey) all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." — Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)
