us. Neither do the people in our host countries. But with our fellow expats, the friendship goes deep, fast. These friendships are deep and strong, yes, but alas, they remain short. They are not forever. The very thing that draws us together—our mobile lifestyle—is what pulls us apart. We move, or someone else moves, and the friendship is stretched taut. It was good, it was deep, it was real. And it was temporary.
Because one day all that precious intimacy goes poof. It evaporates. It dissipates. it’s not that we won’t keep in touch—in this internet age we probably will—but our daily and weekly fellowship will be severed. Love may not wane, but shared life must and will. This small, tight-knit community is practically perfect, except that the closeness isn’t here to stay. It’s not long-term in real life the way it is in my imagination. And for now, this is a tension I carry with me in all my nonfamilial relationships.
I live with the unwanted understanding that this place cannot be my forever home. I can’t settle here for all time. I know I must leave someday. I must say goodbye to the people and the place, and I don’t like it. Not one bit. In these times I tell myself it’s okay, that all I really need is my relationship with God.
But that attitude tends to isolate me from others. I retreat into my protective shell and cut off life-giving relationships. But doesn’t God set us in physical places, all the way from the garden of Eden to Canaan to southeast Asia to the new heaven and earth? Christ is central to our rootedness, yes, but physical places and physical people are important too. Fellowship and space-time were his idea, after all.
So where does this leave me, unable to settle permanently in a space, unable to live continually with the same people, unable to depend solely on Jesus for companionship? It leaves me in a place of temporary intimacy with people and temporary settledness on the map. It leaves me in a place of desiring more permanency than I can currently claim. And it leaves me waiting for a better day and a better country, for a time and place when temporary fades away and I’ll be given eternal roots.
Culture Days
By Elizabeth
In the early days of living in Cambodia, a high school student came to my house for math tutoring. I noticed the neighbor children pestering her as she waited for me to unlock the gate. When I let her in, one of the girls grabbed a handful of my stomach and yanked. As my student pushed her moto into my house, a boy followed her inside and began examining some of our stuff. I told him, “ot tay, ot tay,” which means “no, no.” Then I tried to lead him out of the house—I had not, after all, invited him in. He just laughed, repeated my request in falsetto, and shuffled out slowly.
A day like that makes me want to lock my doors, hide myself in my bedroom, crank up the air conditioning, and watch a movie.
It’s what I call a “bad culture day.”
The next few days I didn’t want to go outside, or even unlock the gate for our house helper in the morning. In fact, I asked Jonathan to unlock it. I just couldn’t handle another neighbor kid violating my house or my body. (These neighbor kids live in the orphanage next door—and I had never seen those two before. They don’t have normal social boundaries, even for Cambodians.)
But today I had errands to do, so I called my tuk tuk driver and walked out my front door. I paid the bill that was due and bought the items on my list. I even talked to my driver.
Fast forward to this evening. This evening our children begged us to let them play outside on the street. We initially created a play space for them on our roof in order to avoid playing on the street, where children and adults alike touched them too much. We’ve spent a lot of time on the roof in the last several months. Lately, though, they don’t want the roof. They want the street. (That desire in itself is a huge step forward into the culture for them.) So out we went, culture-avoiding-me included.
First, Jonathan stopped by a local Khmer restaurant to pick up some supper. We love their fried rice (and its price!). We started eating it in front of the house while the kids played. That’s a very Khmer thing to do. They cook in front of their houses over an open fire, just like they’ve done for thousands of years, and then eat outside as well. Nobody touched me or my children rudely. We talked with the older ladies. One of them particularly likes our children, and told us tonight that it makes her happy to watch them play. Later, when a child slipped on the wet pavement, they were very concerned for him to clean his scrapes well.
Even my shy little daughter played and laughed with the girl next door. (That was a first, by the way.) We felt a sense of belonging in what we did tonight—eating Khmer food, speaking the Khmer language, and playing with our Khmer neighbors.
It was what I call a “good culture day.”
A day like today gives me the courage to go back out and try again. It gives me the courage to interact with the people—unwanted touches included.
God, give us more good culture days.
A Good Day
by Elizabeth
I had a good day today. Yes, it’s true. I had a good day yesterday too. And not just “good for Cambodia,” but honest to goodness, downright good.
The November before I moved here, I climbed a twenty-foot pole. And jumped off it. (I know you’re all asking yourselves if this is the same nonathletic Elizabeth Hunzinger you thought you knew.) I climbed it with no fear. But when I got to the top, I froze. The transition from crouching at the top of the pole to standing on the top of the pole was incredibly frightening. It’s the shortest part, about one second of motion, but it’s the most difficult. And I needed Jonathan to coach me through it. Once I was standing, I felt fine again.
It’s the same in labor. Transition, that part of labor just before full dilation, is the shortest part. It’s also the most intense and the place where a mom doubts herself. She needs help to get through it. (Jonathan claims that since he did this for me four times, I owe him four doula fees).
In training we learned about the “Chaos Bridge,” which is an analogy for transition. We start out settled and stable, move into a period of unsettlement with all its farewells, and then into the bouncy bubbly transition. We start to come out of it while resettling, and then finally reach a new settled state.
When I was neck-deep in missionary transition, friends on both continents supported me with prayers and encouragement. I couldn’t have made it through without their doula-ing, as all my birthie friends would say.
Transition. The most terrible part. The shortest part. Now I know with certainty that it doesn’t last forever. And I can assure the next person I see experiencing transition that it does indeed end. It’s painful, but it won’t last long. Not much longer now. I promise.
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“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me”
(Ps 23:4 ESV).
C’est la Vie
by Elizabeth
Sometimes life surprises me. Like that time when Jonathan was sick with typhoid fever, and I was in the school room, and suddenly the light bulb burst into flame. Literal two-inch orange flames.
That never happened to me in America.
Or
