from re-entry resources:
"Before we left we were solidly entrenched in our church ministry, school, work, and home life. Our values were driven by those relationships and experiences. When we return home everything can feel very different. Some of the things that were important to us before we left fail to impact us in the same way now that we are back. Getting good grades, getting a job advancement, watching the playoffs, purchasing a new car, assuming more responsibility for ministry at church--all these may seem less attractive or fulfilling. After working with needy children living in a garbage dump in Mexico, hiking dangerous mountain trails to a remote village in the mountains of Papua New Guinea...etc..., some of our previously "important" activities may now seem trivial. In fact, some of the things that supported our well being before we left now seem tasteless, dull, less desirable, and perhaps a waste of time, money, and effort."
"
Reentry stress is real. You are experiencing it or you will experience it at some level. Sometimes you have gone through the reentry experience before, therefore you don't expect it after the second or third trip.... Sometimes reentry can be more stressful after multiple trips than it was after the first trip. Many people do not recognize that reentry stress is a real issue. Therefore, they have trouble understanding that
they have changed significantly. Someone once said, 'When you travel to another culture and people,
your heart becomes enlarged in �such a way that it will never be as small as it was before you left.' We fall in love with people overseas. All the nameless faces we have seen in missionary publications now have names. Their hurts, fears and joys seem more important to us since some of them are our friends. You know and remember who they are and where they lived. They made a meal for you with the best they had. They sacrificed a month's wages to cook a chicken for you. When you experience these things, or a hundred others like them--
you begin to realize you are a different person from the one that left some time ago. Realizing that your values, your priorities, your prayer life, and you are different is a big step in making the adjustment to becoming a valuable, contributing believer in your church and your daily life."
"We often feel
discouraged, disconnected, disappointed, aloof, out-of-it, and sometimes just plain weird after arriving home. Sometimes it takes a long time to readjust and begin to feel normal again. Reentry stress rears its ugly head in many different and
disconcerting ways. Be careful not to criticize values and decisions while you are still in the '
fog.' Give yourself the gift of time. Discipline yourself to use the tools that God provides for you to readjust successfully and become a more valuable member of your own culture."
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and
you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
