Bringing It Home

In the last few weeks I have heard from a lot of people in Central Asia. Some are from the country I was in this summer, writing with questions about our research project or the new prayer guide, due back from press any day now. Old teammates wrote asking if I'd consider coming back to Central Asia for a season again, to help workers write up case studies. I've been getting newsletters from friends I knew in 'Sofarawayistan,' now scattered all over the world by the diaspora of workers from that now-troubled country. I even got a message about my Central Asian sister; she's back together with her husband and caring for a second baby. Hudoga shukur - thanks be to God!

When I first came back from my sabbatical in Sofarawayistan I continued in the ways I'd picked up overseas; maybe I was afraid of losing them. I was still working on the book and was reading interview transcripts over and over, so I had the voices of all these women I'd profiled running through my head. I wore my Central Asian clothes a lot of the time (though not the outfit above, which cannot fit into American fashion by any reckoning; it just comes out for show and tell!) And I continued to relate to God in the ways I had while overseas.

But it's been a long time.

With all the contact with people from Central Asia in recent weeks I have been wondering, how much is all that still part of who I am now? Quite a bit, I think. More, not less.

The transitions between America and everywhere else are much less jarring. Who I am overseas and who I am at home seem to be becoming more integrated. And - Hudoga shukur for this as well - He has delivered me from some of my American 'disease,' the things that had been making my life too busy. Now once again I find I can lead more the contemplative life I so enjoyed in Sofarawayistan. Even if it seems - as it did there - sometimes boring or unproductive. That's the price you pay.

Earlier this year, when I was overcommitted and out of balance, there were times I wondered if the only way I was going to be able to walk with God was to quit my job. Ironic. But now giving out in ministry and finding refreshment seem to be fitting together quite well. Thanks be to God!