My Divided Heart

It's difficult to adequately describe the division of your heart that happens when you live in, and learn to love, another culture and people group. You are never the same. You still love your home, but now your heart has grown to love another entire group of traditions, languages, sights, sounds and smells.

It's sort of like what happens when parents have multiple kids. They don't love their first child less when they have another. Somehow, they manage to love that second, third, etc. child just as much as the first, with the understanding that this new baby is a unique blessing from God, different from their first child, but just as loveable in his/her own ways.

So I'm always a little sheepish about telling folks in Costa Rica that I miss the U.S., or folks here that I miss Costa Rica. Am I devaluing their impact and influence on my life by acknowledging that there is somewhere else that is also special to me? But it's hard not to admit that wherever I am, there's a piece of my heart left behind. While happy to be with those that I've been missing (the glass-half-full part of me), I'm also sad to be away from others that I love (the glass-half-empty part).

More than missing a PLACE, though, I am really missing the people. When I am in Costa Rica, I miss many of you readers of this blog. Holidays with family, dinners or movies with friends, family time with friends who have kids who are friend of our kids. Homeschool community, recreational opportunities for the kids, birthday parties that pass us by as everyone's kids age (and grow) relentlessly. An apt word via phone or text just when I need it, because I am close enough for that friend to know what is happening with me just in that moment.

Things I have missed about Costa Rica while home on furlough are the same: I miss the people. Making Christmas tamales with Zeidy, talking with Alonzo about the hard question "where is God in this crappy world?" after giving a devotional that got him thinking about his beliefs, hugs from Yendry, Chio's sense of humor, Zumba class with my bible study girls, Karen's compassion, pedis with a fellow missionary, game nights with an intern, family movie night with Michelle in our midst. It's not about WHAT'S being done, it's about WHO it's being done with.

I even miss Andrew, a student that I had to kick of out of my English class near the end of a semester after he had pushed my buttons one too many times! After that, he respected me for drawing a boundary for his behavior and we became friends, oddly enough. I learned to challenge him (he mostly acted out because he was bored - he's super-smart) to help him funnel his energies. I encouraged him in his pursuit of learning to play the guitar, and he would ask me questions about God and theology (he's a wayward son of a pastor) after our devotionals.

People in the U.S. may think of Costa Rica as a beautiful place to vacation, nice weather, exotic animals, etc. But to me Costa Rica means the people that God has brought in my path to encourage, teach, serve, disciple and love (and also to learn and receive a ton from THEM!). Take them away and the allure for me is gone. People are our ministry and our calling in life, not a place.

Thinking about what I miss in both the U.S. and Costa Rica really brings home the fact that it's the quality of relationships that mark a life. Those of us with life-giving, purposeful relationships live in abundance. While those with a dearth of supportive and healthy relationships (or a wake of broken ones lying in their trail) live missing out on a key element of the blessing of God.

God created us to live in relationship, with Him and with others, no matter where He takes us: one country or the next, in a "secular" job or in ministry, at the kids' soccer practice or in retirement. May He always remind us that it's not about WHERE, but about WHO. Whether on the mission field (or on furlough), in church, in our job, on the street, at the library, or in the line at Panera's, God gives us people to minister to everywhere.