Coming home from Nepal was a bigger struggle than I expected. I had been told about culture shock so many times before and during my mission trip. I knew that it may be hard to readjust after being in a different culture for 3 weeks but I didn’t expect it to be as big of a struggle as it was.
Leaving Nepal was where it started. Saying goodbye to our Nepalese friends, our house, and all of the places we went for ministry was so heartbreaking. I thought I was home sick and it would be easy for me to leave but as soon as it came time to say goodbye I sobbed for 30 minutes straight and did not want to leave at all. I got over it after realizing I had no other choice. So I settled down and went on with traveling home and finishing debrief with my team.
Arriving home I spent my first night back with my family and then the very next day I went and hung out with friends the entire day thinking i’d be fine. I thought I would just be excited to see my friends, and I was. It was just too much. I have always been the type of person who can be around people 24/7. After coming back that changed. I felt like it was hard to relate to people who hadn’t been on the trip with me. I didn’t feel like I could snap back into my regular life. Not even three days later I went straight to youth camp. That week was such a huge struggle I did not expect. I was surrounded by people who were so excited to be there and do the ministry work we were doing there. I felt bad but I was just not enjoying it and I didn’t really feel like being there half the time. It made me realize how much I was struggling with being back in a normal culture. Being back here was so difficult because yes, people here know and care about what is going on in third world countries, but they do not truly understand the brokenness and pain the people are going through. You can’t truly understand it until you see it first hand. Until you see the children sleeping under pieces of plywood. Until you see the kids beating on each other as they fight over getting loved. All they want is to be held and cared for. The kids tear at each other as you are holding them, so that they can be held. People here don’t think daily about the specific situations these broken families are in because they haven’t seen it. And this makes it hard for them to realize how truly blessed we are to live in a country like we do. And no, I am not completely, 100% grateful for everything I have and I do forget to thank God for that. I am working to do that more because I feel that I should at least be one more person who does remember, since I have been one of the few who have been given the great opportunity to have these experiences. But I felt like no one was truly grateful and no one understood what I meant when I said I couldn’t stand being here when I could be in Nepal with the people I had built relationships with.
I can’t go on with my daily tasks that seem so measly without longing to be on those long walks to ministry which I really did not enjoy while I was actually on them. I barely get a certain feeling and it puts me back in those memories of four hour team times or I listen to a certain song and it transports me back to our nights of Shabbat Shalom when the lights would go out in the middle of worship. It truly has taken me quite a long time to readjust. God truly did so much when we were there and He taught me so much about the people around me. He showed me how to grow closer to Him everyday and how to grow in myself. I learned how to run to Him in every moment. I learned so many things about myself that only He could know. It has gotten a lot easier to be back home but I know I will still have moments here and there where I struggle with this. And it’s not because of anything here. It is because when I was there is when I learned so much and saw so many things. It was there that so many things about my character, heart, and mind truly did change.
That trip really was led by the Holy Spirit and I wouldn’t have changed anything that happened. Many people know this about me but I have a large pull on my heart strings towards India. Nepal is very similar which is why I went. I really pray I get the opportunity to return to Kathmandu to walk those streets again, look over the city from that terrace, worship with my Agape Ministries friends, and to embrace the faces of those children with those beautiful smiles.
