Nomads

“Man, Vivi. You just got here… and now you’re leaving again,” my dear friend Karissa said as she squeezed me tightly, wrapping me into a friendly hug. I did the math. I flew in from Colombia on Saturday and I was packing up for Canada on Wednesday. Yes, I was already leaving… again. I chuckled. Isn’t that the truth? How do I ever explain this nomadic life to those who have never lived it? Why is packing up, picking up and going so normal… even second-nature to me?

Though I absolutely love traveling to new places and experiencing new cultures and meeting new people, airports don’t carry a sense of excitement for me. Seeing terminal signs and arrival and departure tv screens don’t send thrills through me. Airports are sterile. Airports, rather than embodying new adventures and fun new places to discover, hold too many cold goodbyes and quick embraces. I was recently in California with a friend from high school. As she dropped me off at the airport she said, “Airports always make me feel sad. Yes, I like travelling, but airports always make me sad.” Ah, a true third-culture kid.

My heart goes out to nomads in the world.

Last week when I was in Colombia I had a gut-wrenching, tear-filled conversation with a wonderful friend. We talked about home. We talked about wandering the Earth… choosing—or choosing to obey—the call to a life of pilgrimage. Why are there so many of us who live lives far from the place we call home? We struggled to understand how God, in his sovereignty had placed me in her homeland and her in mine. There wasn’t a lack per se of people willing to live in Colombia or Champaign; we would have switched places if we weren’t so sure of God’s specific call on our lives to be in the places that we were.

What was God up to? Why was he in the business of uprooting people and replanting them in new communities elsewhere? It isn’t a new phenomenon—as much as we’d like to attribute it to this term we’ve coined: “globalization.” No, the Bible is scattered with those who we, looking back, would label as “third-culture kid (adults).” We find Daniel and his three friends captured and taken to Babylon where they were forced to learn the new language and culture of another people group—a people group oppressing their families. We see Moses, an Israelite by birth, adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, raised in wealth and luxuries different from that of his native people. And then, called back to lead and minister. I’m sure he didn’t feel fully “Israelite” all the time. We see Joseph, sold into captivity and after many trials, establish an entire, separate life as an adult in Egypt, far from his relatives in Canaan. Abraham leaves his family and follows God to this land that is promised to him, choosing to become a foreigner. The list is extensive… it could go on.

And I'll use my friend's words from her own blog because they were phrased so perfectly:

"Yes, even my savior himself was ripped from his heavenly home in order to walk this desolate Earth among us for 33 years-- in order to save us. . . 'Home' is not here. It's not in Colombia and it's not in America. It's not on the gorgeous beaches or in the humble farmlands. You can sweep the entire planet and not find a place that is really, truly 'home' because we weren't created for this planet in the first place."

And when I get a glimpse of the place-- oh, that glorious place-- that we were created to for, I am overcome with emotion. I can't stop the tears the fill my eyes and I can't swallow the lump that sits in my throat. I just can't.

It's just too beautiful of a picture. Oh, the day when my heavenly Father opens up his arms and whispers, "Welcome home." Oh the day when I hear those blessed words and don't question or ask myself where home is... because I just know... that finally, finally... it is here. And those glimpses are so glorious that they are enough to convince me that this is a passing world and it is temporary and one day, it will be worth it.