By the time you read this, I’ll be back in South Carolina after three years of serving the Lord in South Asia.
I’ll probably also be in culture shock – the reverse kind.
Ethan Leyton can just walk down the street to the store and get all his groceries, but some of his groceries are available right on the street.I’ve experienced this before, though it took me by surprise. I had the honor of serving as a journeyman in the United Kingdom shortly after I finished college. It was easy to think that coming home from there wouldn’t involve a lot of culture shock, but I was very wrong. Two years in a foreign country changes one’s perspective. Living there even changed my accent just a little. Coming back to the United States was even harder than leaving had been because I had changed so much, and I had to readjust to what I thought I had always known.
Now I’m about to face reverse culture shock again, and I’m apprehensive. I’ve spent three years here in South Asia, and now my job is to go home and tell stories to everyone who will listen about what I’ve seen God do here and what life is like on this side of the world. South Asia feels like a different planet sometimes, but it has become my home. Does that make me an alien? Will I feel like one while I’m in South Carolina?
I can see myself walking into Wal-Mart and being stunned silent for a few minutes. I’ll see familiar brand names and products I haven’t seen or thought about in a while, and the prices may be cheaper or more expensive than South Asia, depending on the item. The experience may leave me wondering whether I should laugh or cry. I’ll walk into the DVD section and not recognize 80 percent of the new releases.
I’ll be driving and thinking about how spacious the roads are. I’ll realize during drives that I haven’t had to use the car horn the whole time. I’ll laugh that the cows are on the other side of the fence rather than in the middle of the road. And I’ll marvel that I have not seen one person in the last mile. I’ll become reflective that for the first time in a long while, I understand what is going on around me.
And I’ll begin missing things about South Asia. I’ll miss buying 10 pounds of vegetables for $5. I’ll miss my wonderful colleagues and my two cats in my cozy apartment. I’ll miss the security guards who always wave at me. I’ll miss being able to walk to get all the groceries I need. I’ll miss the intimacy of house church. I’ll probably also begin missing the things that tend to drive me crazy here. I’ll think that the driving conditions in the States are wonderful, but probably boring. I may miss sticking out in a crowd and may even want people to stare at me periodically.
Leyton describes this as a typical traffic jam in his neck of the woods in South Asia.So if you meet me or anyone else who has just returned from overseas and we look a little overwhelmed, watch our faces light up when you ask us anything – anything! – about the places where we serve: our homes, the foods we eat, the neighborhoods, the travels, the language challenges. Scary stories, funny stories, stories about anything – we’ve got ’em.
Then take us out to Krispy Kreme, and we can celebrate the best of both of our worlds.
*Name changed for security reasons. Leyton serves as a regional music strategist and occasionally writes stories for the South Asia region of the International Mission Board. He was born in Greenville, but his family now lives in Travelers Rest. He is a member of Bethel Baptist Church in Greenville.