On the fifth of May, 2012, I went to Kazakhstan on a two
week trip….
…and came back changed in some way. My first challenge, aside from remembering
what transpired during the trip as I re-assimilate into western culture, is to
compile and explain my trip to friends, to family, to my church…
It has been some time since my return and I admit that then
transition back into Canada was hard. I
went straight from work into the missions field and then straight back to work
again. I didn't get time off to think
about what I’d just gone through and I had little spare time to spend reflecting on all of the things I had just experienced. I went right back into my old schedule and routine.
What made this even more difficult was the two week period
of isolation that I experienced. My work
schedule and other circumstances resulted in two weeks of isolation from my
friends, family, and church. During that
time, I didn’t see anyone, let alone talk to anyone. It was a rough two weeks because I had a lot
in my head that I really wanted to digest and share.
Eventually, however, that period of isolation ended and I
was able to begin sharing my experiences and thoughts.
I expected that one of the first things to come out of
people’s mouths when they saw me was “How was Kazakhstan?” or “How did the trip
go?”. These questions seem like very
easy questions to answer, but I find them very challenging questions. It is very similar to someone asking a
painter “What does this painting mean?”.
Often there is an answer, but the painter has difficulty communicating
the meaning of his painting to other people.
This is because there are dozens of layers of meaning and emotion in the
painting that the painter knows, thinks and feels when he sees his
painting. He remembers the layers of
paint that he used as he created it. He
remembers layering paint on top of paint in a way that perpetually formed the
meaning of the painting to reflect the emotions of his heart and the thoughts
of his mind. These are maybe things that
cannot be properly expressed through the use of words and so the artist painted
the picture to communicate them. So what
can the painter say when he is asked what the meaning is of his picture? He
will often simplify the answer into something that people can understand.
Like the artist’s painting my trip had many different
layers, though they are not made of paint, but rather they are made of
experiences. There were good experiences
and there were not so great experiences.
The layers seem to stretch so thick that to say “It went well” or “It
was good” seems to subtract from this trip’s meaning in my life. But if I were to, like the artist, simplify
the answer to something that people would understand, I would end up with a
statement like “Kazakhstan changed me!”
My pastor once referred to missions trips as “people
changing events”. He compared people to
shapes depending on their culture. Take
for instance, Mr. Squarehead. Mr.
Squarehead was born and raised in his home culture of mostly square-headed
people. It is natural for Mr. Squarehead
to have a squarehead because he has only really experienced interactions with
other squareheads that make up the square society.
Then one day Mr. Squarehead goes on a trip to another country. There he sees few squareheads. Instead he interacts with circleheads. Eventually he immerses himself into the new
culture of circle people that make up the circle society. Over a period of time Mr. Squarehead begins
to change. His squarehead become less
like a squarehead and more like a square-circlehead (or an octagon). This has taken place as he has been
assimilated into the circle culture. He has begun seeing life through the eyes of circleheaded people. And
so Mr. Squarehead’s head ceases to be a square and becomes instead, an octagon.
What has changed people like Mr. Squarehead, is the
experiences that they have had; how they experienced the language, the people,
the traditions and rituals, the beliefs and values. It is essentially how we interact with
culture that shapes us (or rather how culture interacts with us). We are by-products of our culture, no matter
how much we want think otherwise. When
we experience a new culture, we soon find that we have to assimilate into it or
else become victims of culture-shock. It
is then that the new culture will leave its fingerprint on who we are and how
we think.
Of course there are other forces that change us as well, but
none that shapes us on the foundational level as culture does.
And then there is God. I know that in some capacity, I was brought to
experience the things that I did because of God’s guidance. He had brought me to a place where I finally
was able to step out in faith and let go of the things that I was holding on to. For me, going on this trip was a relatively easy decision to make (as I really wanted to go), but the process I had to go through leading up to the trip was not an easy thing to deal with; but I made it
and the result of following God’s guidance has been tremendous uplifting.
In the same quality that Mr. Squarehead’s squarehead changed
into an octagonhead, I believe that I too have changed.
I still am discovering the many ways that I have turned from a square into an
octagon, but this blog series is not going
to be about how I am now different from what I once was, but rather it is about the process of how I
have come to be changed...
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