Home?

I recently had a very good conversation with a current AIMer who is on a short visit home for the first time in a year. She'll be going back to her field for a few more months before finishing. And yet, she's already feeling a lot of the things that we call reverse culture-shock. The crux of our conversation was dealing with the concept of "home," and trying to figure out what to do next. I just wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago, illustrating an aspect of God that has comforted me often during life transitions, of which coming "home" from the field is only one example (though it is an outstanding one).


Let's remind ourselves that our "home" is in heaven, and that it's good to feel "homeless" here to some extent. Let's also remind ourselves that God is everywhere, even now, and be encouraged to trust him with what's ahead, what's behind, and what's directly in front of us.


"And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'..." -Acts 17:26-28


You are here, I know
Because it shows.
But sometimes what comforts me most
is how you're here
before we're here.
And you're there
when we're not there, anymore.


Your omnipresence abides at my core,
And I'm sure it endures beyond that door
with those I don't even see anymore
and the ones whom, as of yet, I still haven't met.


Be here with me, and there with my thoughts
and everywhere always, someday we'll be
anywhere, always, it's true, with you.


-Brettin White
 Tlaplan, Mexico
 AIM 2007