Involved (Belonging)
People who drive across the border into a neighboring culture for a day of shopping do not need to prepare for reentry. Likewise, people who fly to a vacation spot in another country and spend time seeing the major tourist attractions do not need to prepare for reentry. Those who need preparation for reentry are people who have lived for some time in a host culture and become immersed enough in it to feel at home there. This book is for people who have come to feel like they “belong” in their host culture.
Part 1: The Longest Reentry
The seventy Israelites who had come down to live in Egypt settled in the region of Goshen where, generation after generation, they raised their families. While there they prospered and grew to a population of several hundred thousand people. These people were all Third Culture Kids (TCKs), people who grew up between cultures. On the one hand they internalized some of the Israelite culture found in their family enclave in Goshen, and on the other hand they internalized some of the Egyptian culture in the country surrounding them.
The Israelites continued to serve in construction and agriculture. Though, as shepherds, they were still despised by people in their Egyptian host culture, their needs were met. They had plenty to eat, stable employment, and life was quite predictable. They probably seldom thought about returning to their passport country. The Egyptians did not particularly like the Israelites, but they tolerated them because they wanted their labor.
However, after a few hundred years circumstances changed for the worse for the Israelites when new people rose to power in Egypt. The new politicians did not understand about Joseph and the relationship the Israelites living in Goshen had with past Egyptian leaders. These new politicians were worried that the increasing number of Israelites providing labor for them would join an invading army to fight against them and then leave the country (Exodus 1:1-10).
The Israelites went from being a despised, but accepted, minority group to one actively discriminated against. The Egyptians first tried to use slavery to keep the Israelites “in their place.” The writer of Exodus describes their treatment as
The worse they were mistreated, the more the Israelites grew, and the Egyptians came to dread them. Then they attempted genocide to keep the Israelites from increasing. This, however, did not work because the midwives refused to kill the baby boys when they were born. When the Egyptian leaders commanded all boy babies to be thrown into the Nile, it actually resulted in an Israelite boy being raised in the Egyptian palace (Exodus 1:11-22).
By this time nearly 400 years had passed since the Israelites had first come to Egypt to survive the famine. During all this time they had maintained their identity and the culture of their passport country. Although they did not enjoy their role, they knew where they fit in the Egyptian host culture around them. In a sense Egypt had become home to them, a place where they “felt at home.” It was a place that at least some of them wanted to return to after they did leave, probably because it provided more security, or so they thought.
Part 2: Reentry Today
Likewise, the longer you have lived in it, and the more you have become involved in it, the more your host country becomes home to you. When you first arrived, you converted many things into the units of your passport country. You did this with money, temperature, lengths, weights, and a host of other things. You did this with the host country language when you translated what you read or heard into your mother tongue, thought about, and then translated your answer back into the language of your host country. You had to concentrate on your actions including everything from how close to stand during a conversation, to where to look as you talked to others, to gestures with your hands.
Now these things have become “automatic” for you so that you do them without converting, translating, or concentrating on them. You now “feel at home” in your host country. An old saying says, “It takes a heap of living to make a house a home.” Just as a house is not “home” until you have lived in it a long time, a culture is not “home” until you have lived in it a long time. Mark each of the following that you can do without concentrating.
Home is where you automatically do many things.
q Count your change in the local currency.
q Know whether or not a price is fair in the local currency.
q Cross streets automatically and safely.
q Drive across town.
q Bargain well for a lower price (or pay the price without question).
q Hear the temperature in Celsius (Fahrenheit) and know how warm or cold it feels.
q See the distance in kilometers (miles) and know how long it will take to get there on a freeway.
q Carry on a conversation in the language of the host country without mentally translating in into your mother tongue.
q Talk without concentrating on avoiding offensive nonverbal movements.
q Hear the address of a store on a major street in your city and know about where it is.
q Expect the majority of people with appointments to come a half hour late (or precisely on time).
q Know others and are known by them.
q Make last minute changes in your schedule.
q Accept others and are accepted by them.
q Let work go to build relationships.
q Can be yourself and allow others to be themselves.
q Accept a colleague who got the position because she or he is the member of a particular family, not the one best able to do the work.
q Feel safe with others and they feel safe with you.
Time Orientation
Home is where you live in the “now.”
q You remember events from your past but do not long to go back to that past.
q Your emphasis is on the present.
q You anticipate things coming in the future, but those things do not dominate your thinking.
q You can think about yesterday and tomorrow, but you are living today to its fullest.
Social Characteristics
Home is where you know your place socially.
q You are part of a group.
q You feel like you belong.
q You know where you “fit” in that group.
q People in the group know your position.
q People know your reputation, and you know theirs.
q You can confide in friends.
q Friends confide in you.
q You feel committed to your friends, and they to you.
q You feel responsible for your friends, and they for you.
Spiritual Characteristics
Home is where you can worship without distraction.
q The music glorifies God and leads you to him.
q The worship style brings you to God.
q The preaching and teaching edifies your spirit.
q The service is long enough, but not too long.
q You can share freely in smaller groups.
Psychological Characteristics
Home is where you feel psychologically “comfortable.”
q You feel affirmed.
q You experience intimacy.
q You feel secure.
q People feel safe.
q Your worship expressions are the same as others.
Above all else, home is where things are familiar.
q Familiar places: You know the layout of rooms in your home, squeaks in the floors, shrubs in the yard, fences or walls around the yard, streets in the neighborhood and thoroughfares in the city or town.
q Familiar faces: You may know people intimately. Or you may know them by the roles they play, such as the clerk in the store, the yard man next door, the driver, or the children who go by your house each day on the way to school.
q Familiar graces: Interactions with others are predictable, courtesies (or the lack of) are expected, tact (or the lack of) comes naturally, and mercy (or the lack of) is predictable.
The longer you have lived in a culture the more you feel at home. The more you are involved in the culture, the more you feel at home. If you live on a base or in a compound where your interaction is primarily with other expats, you may never feel really at home; however, if you live in a national neighborhood with no expats within several blocks, you will feel really at home.