In Transit
Transit is defined as the act of passing over, across, or through something. Knowing that they are “in transit” and waiting between flights, passengers often look for the transit lounge as they are passing through the airport. The transit stage of reentry begins when you leave your house in your host country and ends when you unpack your mind, not just your suitcase, in your passport country. It may last only a few hours or days, but it may last a few weeks or even longer.
The Longest Reentry
When the people began their transit stage by leaving Rameses (Exodus 12), they had seen God’s incredible work in setting them free. Though they were armed for battle, God did not lead them along the shortest route to their passport country because war was more likely there. God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt” (Exodus 13:17).
Using the pillars of cloud by day and fire by night, God led them to camp near the Red Sea. When the politicians in Egypt realized anew that their labor force was leaving, they pursued them. When the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians approaching, they were terrified and asked Moses, “What have you done to us…. Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?’ It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 13:11-12).
The ups and downs continued chapter after chapter. When the Israelites saw God’s power in allowing them to cross on dry ground and drowning the Egyptians as they tried to cross, they put their trust in God and Moses again (Exodus 14). Moses and Miriam sang songs of exaltation to God, but three days later the people grumbled against Moses saying, “What are we to drink?” (Exodus 15). God sweetened the water, but then the people complained about food so God gave them quail and manna (Exodus 16). They quarreled and grumbled against Moses about the water, so God had Moses strike a rock at Horeb (Exodus 17). Talk about ups and downs!
In the third month of the transit stage (Exodus 19:1) they camped in front of Mt. Sinai. God had Moses make sure that the people would obey fully, and they said they would. After a special ceremony, he led the people out of the camp to meet with God as God called Moses up to the top of the mountain where he gave the Ten Commandments inscribed with his finger on two pieces of stone (Exodus 31:18). Talk about a mountain-top experience!
Unfortunately, but true to form, in the next verse the people got so tired of waiting for Moses to come down that they asked Aaron (Moses’ brother) to make them gods who would go before them. Aaron took their gold and made an idol in the shape of a calf, building an altar in front of the calf. When Moses approached the camp and saw the idol worship, he threw the stones tablets breaking them at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 32). Talk about spiritual ups and downs!
In the fourteenth month of their transit stage (Numbers 10:11) the cloud started moving again, so the Israelites left Sinai and headed for their passport country. After more ups and downs Moses sent the leaders of each of the twelve tribes to explore their passport country before taking everyone in. These twelve men spent forty days exploring and came back with a report. At this time the Israelites seemed to be nearing the end of their transit stage.
They began their report by saying that “the land flows with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27). They were amazed at the prosperity they found and brought back a bunch of grapes that was so large it took two of them to carry it on a pole between them. They brought other fruit as well.
However, they went on to say that the people were powerful and the cities large (Numbers 13:28). They felt overwhelmed by what they saw. Caleb wanted to go in and take over their passport country, but the others pointed out reasons not to go.
Though God did not do that, he did say that all over twenty years of age, except for Joshua and Caleb, would die before the group reached their passport country, and their children’s transit stage would be another forty years, the longest in the Bible.
They did not start to enter until we reach Joshua 1. There Joshua, one of the men who wanted to go in and take their passport country, was telling his people to get ready, that in three days they would “cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you for your own” (Joshua 1:10). Note that God is giving the land to them, but they have to take possession. At this point they are ready for the entering stage.
Reentry Today
Note that the transit stage lasts until you unpack your mind. Unpacking your mind involves considering the good and difficult things that happened during your time in the other culture, and then fitting these experiences into your life story. After you have done this, you are ready to move on with the next chapter in your life. This may be days or weeks after your suitcases are unpacked. It is certainly longer than the time needed to fly to your passport country and drive to your dwelling there. This travel can usually be done in forty hours or less today.
The transit stage certainly includes travel time and the familiar physical jet-lag which takes anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks, depending on how many time zones are crossed. In addition, it includes the time to unpack our minds, kind of a psychological jet-lag not handled with air travel. From the time Paul, Barnabas, and Silas traveled by ship through the middle of the twentieth century, people usually had several weeks at sea on ships to think and talk about what their time as an expatriate meant to their lives. Today people are home in a matter of hours, and they usually “hit the ground running” rather than taking time to process what has happened to them.
The transit stage is a time of emotional high and lows. The Israelites were elated to leave Egypt, and a few days later they wished they were back. They sang songs of exultation to God, and days later they were grumbling and complaining against Moses. One has to be very careful during this time. For example, grumbling and complaining may generalize from people to God and result in your turning your back on him. Or you may be dissatisfied with your housing, think you deserve something better, and wind up buying a house that is way out of your price range.
Following are several things that may occur as you begin to unpack your mind. You may be overwhelmed and disoriented, feel inferior and lose self-esteem, and become disappointed and even judgmental while you unpack your mind.
Overwhelming abundance
When you return to your passport country, you (like the Israelites) may be amazed at the abundance of things you find there. You may be dazzled and love what you see. You may feel overwhelmed by seemingly simple things such as buying groceries in a store. Some people find it nearly impossible to buy something as “simple” as toilet paper or cereal. For the last few years there were just one or two kinds of toilet paper or cereal, and in their passport country there are entire aisles stacked six feet high on both sides with different kinds and sizes. One person was unable to even buy a jar of ketchup.
You may also find an abundance of things your children are “expected” to do. The church may have something on for children of different ages nearly every afternoon or evening. The community may have Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys Clubs, Girls Clubs, 4-H,…. Even preschoolers are in leagues for soccer, basketball, football, baseball, track, cross-country…. Most elementary kids are taking lessons of some kind after school, such as piano, tennis, swimming, karate….
Poor thinking
We saw God was right in Exodus 13 when he said that if the people faced war they might want to return to Egypt. A general principle here is that one should not make important decisions at any time while in the transit stage. Make those decisions while in the leaving stage or after you enter the entering stage. You cannot think clearly while in the chaos of transit. At times you may feel disoriented or “lost,” kind of like you are a spectator rather than a participant.
Feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem
The Israelite spies felt inferior to the people they saw in their passport culture. Since your passport culture has changed, you may not know how to do even “simple” things that were automatic when you left. You may not know what to do with your credit card to complete (or begin) a transaction or you may not know the difference between debit and credit cards. You may not know how to unlock your car or to turn the ignition off—the radio just keeps playing after you take the key out. You may feel inferior when you cannot do these things, but you are not—you just have not had the opportunity to learn these changes as they occurred.
People returning to their passport cultures may have low self-esteem because they cannot carry on conversations about recent TV shows, political issues, or humor at “home.” Of course, they feel like fish out of water because they really have been out of their culture for some time. This is normal, not a sign of some character or intellectual defect.
Growing Disappointment
Just as the spies were disappointed in their passport country, you may become disappointed with yours. People there tell you how much they missed you and how good it is to see you, but they only wrote a few times during the time you were gone. They tell you how good it is to see you but have little interest in what you have done. After asking you how “your trip” was, they may listen for a few minutes and then begin telling you about the exciting football game they were at last night.
Judgmentalism
The Israelite spies gave a bad report about their country. You too may be tempted to become judgmental about your passport culture. You may see it as superficial and materialistic because relationships mean so little and people have so much wealth. You may have so much to share about the things you have experienced that have broadened your view, and they are interested only in insignificant things. Be very careful not to become critical, cynical, and dismissive.
Time Orientation
Probably no one really likes the transit stage, so they are oriented toward the future. How many people have you met ten hours into a flight who said, “I sure hate to think that we have only two more hours to go—I wish it would last another ten!” No one likes the normal emotional ups and downs, the fuzzy thinking, the feelings of inferiority, or the disappointment of being in transit. People are just glad when it is over and they can begin to get on with life.
Patience is a needed virtue during this time. No one likes to have a cold, but they know that the runny nose and coughing are “normal” for that time and will go away relatively soon. Likewise, no one likes transition, but people should know that transition will not last forever. Patience during this time shortens the emotional upheaval.
Social Characteristics
While in transit, people are unsure of their status, they simply do not know where they fit in the society. In a sense, they have no status. They feel clueless because they do not seem to fit anywhere in the social structure they have “returned” to. Social groups have all changed, and they do not “belong” to groups they remember leaving.
This is a time of chaos, a time of ambiguity and misunderstandings. People feel isolated. It only seems logical that people would reach out to you and make you feel at home, but you find that you have to initiate relationships. It is often a very lonely time. Again, this is normal. Remember that life has been moving on for others while you were gone, and people are busy. Patience is again the key. You were the one to leave, and you are the one who will probably have to take the initiative to reconnect. It would be nice if others invited you, but the fact is that you may need to invite them.
Spiritual Characteristics
During the leaving stage you re-centered your life on the unchanging God. During this transition stage, with the chaos going on all around you so that you are overwhelmed and cannot think clearly, now is the time to emphasize remaining (abiding) in him. Jesus discusses remaining in John 15.
As always, the best way to “remain” is to have a daily devotional life, especially in this time of chaos. In John 15 Jesus emphasizes
In addition it is helpful to have a team of people praying for your reentry so that the enemy does not keep you from remaining.
Psychological Characteristics
The most characteristic emotions of being in transit are anxiety and depression. People have left one culture and have not even begun entering another yet. They are literally people without a culture, not belonging to any group. They are still grieving the loss of leaving their host culture and do not have the sense of being a part of their passport culture.
As mentioned earlier they feel overwhelmed, know that they are not thinking clearly, are disappointed, feel inferior, and have low self esteem. Fortunately, this stage is usually only a few days or weeks, and then they begin entering their passport culture.
Stuck between Chapters
You may have brought the previous chapter of your life to a close, but you have still not really started the next chapter. Sometimes writers get “stuck” between chapters; they have trouble getting started on the next one. They sometimes feel frustrated because they want to get on with their book, but they just cannot get going.
An athlete on a trapeze wanting to switch to the next trapeze has to let go of the current one to reach the next one. For a few seconds the athlete is just suspended in air with nothing to hold on to. When you leave the culture where you have been serving a term and start home, you also find yourself in the same position. You have left one place, and you are not yet in another. You are not where (and who) you were, but you are not yet where (and who) you will be. There is nothing to hold on to, and you may feel confused and disoriented.
You may think that this is happening just because it is your first time to reenter your passport culture, but even experienced missionaries may feel that way. We see the apostle Paul at the end of his third term of service in Acts 20:36-21:1. He describes his goodbyes as including that he:
· Knelt down.
· Prayed.
· Wept.
· Embraced.
· Kissed.
· Grieved.
· Tore himself away.
· Put out to sea.
Although your body may have arrived in your passport country, your “mind” may still be “out to sea,” not mentally unpacked yet. Part of unpacking is leaving behind the things we talked about in the last chapter. Another part is bringing out the old “rules” of your passport culture that you packed away months or years ago. They include everything about how to do things at “home,” including everything from what to wear to how to make a purchase. You expect to experience jet lag when you cross several time zones quickly, and you expect to take about a week before the systems of your body are once more synchronized so that they are functioning in unison. What you may not expect is a psychological “jet lag” during which you may feel confused or disoriented, like you got lost on a detour on the way home and cannot find your bearings.
At the end of his “grieving goodbye,” Paul “put out to sea.” During his trip he had at least two or three weeks to transition, to unpack his mind. He had to sail 400-500 miles followed by a week’s layover in Tyre as well as “a number of days” in Caesarea (Acts 21:1-15). With today’s airliners we would “hit the ground running” in Jerusalem two or three hours later, having little or no time to unpack our minds.
Perhaps you need to just take some time while you are “out to sea” to consider some of the following.
· Changing cultures means that the rules have changed in your “game of life.” How have the rules changed for you? Perhaps while you were gone some of the rules changed in your passport culture, so consider those as well.
· When you do not understand the rules, you may feel like things are out of control. What can you do to learn the rules so that you can stop feeling like you are at the mercy of others?
· Genesis 1:2 notes that the earth was “formless and empty, darkness was over the surface….” If your life seems to be formless, empty, and dark as you are between chapters, remember the rest of the verse is “… and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Creator may want to create something new in your life out of the chaos you feel. What might He want to create in you now?
· Write those ideas down. If you do not, you will probably forget them when you again get caught up in the rat race of life and your old defenses return. Write them down even if they seem to be impossible.
· Try something new. This time of transition is a great time to experiment instead of saying “I can’t do that,” or “I’ve never done it that way before.” List some passing thoughts you have had during this time of transition. These may be about what you might do, where you might go, changes you might make in your life, etc. Remember that these may be from the Spirit hovering over you in this time when life seems dark, empty, and formless. God sometimes speaks in reentry
You are excited about going “home” to the country and church that sent you to another culture as a missionary. Of course, you will miss the people you have been ministering to while you have been in your host country, but you begin to daydream about what it will be like to be greeted by friends and family when you arrive home.
This is usual for everyone who has been away from home a while. However, many times missionaries’ expectations are so high that they experience high re-entry stress. When you get “home,” you may find yourself feeling lonely, isolated, disillusioned, misunderstood, depressed and irritated with people back home as well as with your “own” culture.
Leaving Good things
We seem to live our lives in “sections” with transitions between these sections. We go to preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, university, and then to work. In our work we may flip burgers a while, teach a while, preach a while, then serve as missionaries a while, etc. We may think of these sections as being like chapters in a book. Some people actually write their autobiographies as chapters in journals or diaries. Other people just have them “written” on the pages of their mind and grouped together in one section of their memory.
When you come to the end of a chapter of your life and are ready to transition into the next one, it is often helpful to review what has happened in the chapter you just completed. This is a good time to see how the most recent chapter fits in with the overall story of your life and bring that chapter to a close. You started the chapter review when you filled out your debrief form as you responded to items about your ministry, your colleagues on the field, your family, nationals, your field director, etc. Now is time to bring that chapter to a close and begin to anticipate the next chapter in your life.
People may find it difficult to close one chapter to go on to the next. If they cannot emotionally leave the things of one chapter behind, such people may have trouble getting into the next chapter. They may carry things over from one chapter to the next and never get closure. Taking time to reflect on what has happened and talking things over with others who have similar experiences often helps lift the emotional fog so that one does not continue with baggage from the previous chapter. Reflection also helps with grieving the loss of your host country and culture.
Now you are in transition, the reorientation process already taking place within you as you adapt to the change that has taken place. Your transition probably began several weeks or months ago as you made plans to return. A good way to continue that transition process is to consider some of the good things that have happened to you. Paul and Barnabas must have done this when they returned from their first term of service because their friend, Luke, recorded some good things in Acts 13-14.
· Paul preached a marvelous message of encouragement in Antioch (in Pisida) (13:16-41).
· The sermon was so good that as he was leaving, he was invited back to preach the next week (13:42).
· At Iconium he spoke so effectively that many Jews and Gentiles alike believed (14:1).
· That message was confirmed by miracles (14:1-3).
· In Lystra the healing was so dramatic that people thought Paul and Barnabas were gods (14:8-12).
Even as an experienced missionary at the end of his third term of service Paul reviewed many of the good things he had done. While talking with the elders of the Ephesian church, he mentioned more than a dozen things in Acts 20:19-35.
Go to the top of Paul’s list to the Ephesian elders and check off the ones that you have done yourself in your most recent term of service. No one will have done them all, but you will have probably done some of them. Then actually write down other good things that you have done. Here are a few examples.
· What were some of the most satisfying things that happened during your term? Why were they so satisfying?
· How have you grown during this term?
· What has God done in your life this term?
· How do the above fit with the rest of your life story, with previous chapters in your life?
· How do you see God using these good experiences as stepping stones into the next chapter of your life?
Leaving Difficult Things
In addition to all the “good” things you just considered are the “bad” things that came into your life. Even though we want to leave these things behind, sometimes we have difficulty doing it. We may want to forget about some, but events keep occurring to remind us of them. We may feel ashamed of others, and we keep reminding ourselves of those. To continue the transition process and really leave them behind us, we usually have to recall them, think about them, and place them in the perspective of our whole life story.
Paul and Barnabas talked not only about the good things that had happened but also about the difficult things. Luke also recorded some of these difficult things right along with the good things.
· While they were in Perga (in Pamphylia), John Mark left them to return to his passport country (Acts 13:13) before they moved on to Antioch (in Pisidia). Since they were shorthanded, Paul and Barnabas probably felt overworked and abandoned, and later they had some relationship problems about this. Paul had not yet left it behind.
· Still filled with the Holy Spirit, when they were deported from Antioch (in Pisidia), they shook off the dust from their feet in protest and went on to Iconium (Acts 13:50-52). Paul and Barnabas knew the pain of being rejected by the very people to whom they had come to minister.
· In Iconium they found out about a plot to harm them, so they fled to Lystra (Acts 14:5-6). Paul and Barnabas experienced danger, fear and evacuation.
· In Lystra Paul was stoned, dragged out of the city, and left for dead (Acts 14:19).
You may have been to your “Antiochs,” “Pergas,” “Iconiums,” and “Lystras.” Paul wrote in more detail about these times in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28. How many you have experienced yourself. Add additional ones you have experienced.
Sometimes it is difficult to close a chapter and leave such things behind emotionally, but it can be done. Paul had done this by the time he wrote Timothy. Paul wrote about his life, purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, and sufferings all in one sentence—good and bad alike. In fact he specifically mentioned the difficulties he endured “in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra” (2 Timothy 3:10-11). He finished by saying, “Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.”
Take time to go back a second time through Paul’s list as well as the items you have added. Circle all those that still bother you. This is a good time to bring closure to them. If you do not do it now, these items may follow you into the next chapter of your life and become stumbling blocks there. Go back to the circles you made to consider some of the same questions you did about the good things in the last chapter.
· How did these difficult things lead to growth in your life?
· How did God use the difficulties in your life?
· How do these difficult circumstances fit with the rest of your life story, with previous chapters in your life?
· How do you see God using these difficult experiences as stepping stones into the next chapter of your life?
Several books about reentry are available free of charge on www.missionarycare.com. All of these contain not only information about reentry but also thought-provoking questions that help missionaries process what is happening.
· A book for adults about preparing for reentry to be used during the last few months while still on the field at http://www.missionarycare.com/ebook.htm#before_reentry (Chapter 5)
· A book for elementary age children to be used by them during the last few months while still on the field at http://www.missionarycare.com/ebook.htm#going_home (Chapter 7)
· A book for the parents of elementary children that parallels the children’s book above at http://www.missionarycare.com/ebook.htm#going_home (Chapter 7)