Two years is a long time to live in another country, so when we traveled home this time it seemed as though we were seeing Idaho with new eyes. Everything seemed so clean and organized and beautiful.
In the school where I teach, most of the teachers are from the Midwest and the East coast. So when I tell the students, “I’m from Idaho … you know, out West?” their foreheads furrow with the look of a deer caught in the headlights. So, since I was going to be home this summer, I decided to take a few pictures to put in an album for my curious students to look through. My “few” pictures snowballed into 100 as I saw my home state through the eyes of gratitude and appreciation.
My wife became a bit miffed on a few occasions when I would suddenly swerve to the side of the highway and say something like, “Wow, let’s take a picture of that black angus standing in the road,” or “Wow, look at the sun glistening through the sprinkler system in that alfalfa field.” Things like buffalo in a farmer’s field, water running in corrugates of a beet field, acres of golden grain on rolling hills as far as the eye could see, a tractor with a fork lift loading hay onto a semi, hop vines hanging heavily on slanted wires … was for me a trip into nostalgia. These pictures will be worth a thousand words to teenagers who have lived their entire lives in a crowded city in a third world country.
According to our custom we carefully planned our short summer. Two weeks were to be spent in our hometown of Moscow, Idaho to touch bases with our home church and to set up various medical and financial appointments. Living abroad is a little like taking a trip with a used car ... you can’t afford problems on the trip so you spend a lot of time on maintenance before you go. The other four weeks were planned to stay with my mother in southern Idaho and also see our son who lives nearby.
Our home in Moscow has been rented out for the past two years so we technically didn’t have a home to come back to. Fortunately for us the downstairs renter decided not to come back to college next year, so we were able to live in this small apartment for the time we were there. It was an interesting sensation living in the place where our college-aged children lived while attending the U of I years ago. But we preferred to spend the majority of our time in the more comfortable environs of my mother’s home.
In 2 Timothy 2:13 Paul comments:
"If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself."
As I look back on this short, nostalgic summer I think that this would be my testimony. Although we tried to be faithful in our intake of the Word and our exercises and personal disciplines, it became pretty obvious at the end of the summer how unfaithful one can be during a summer whirlwind romance with nostalgia. However, God was so faithful to us. I want to re-count at least three fundamental areas that the Lord provided for us this summer.
Number 1 – Health
For the last two years Carol has fought with pain in her back and on the right side of her body which has kept her from walking as much or doing as much physically as she has been used to doing. So trying to find a solution to this became a high priority for our visit to the States. Through a series of providential circumstances God directed us to a specialist who diagnosed the cause. Lord willing, she will be back to normal in the near future we hope and we praise God for this provision of health.
Number 2 – Clothes
When we went to the DR two years ago it didn’t dawn on us that there is basically only one season here … summer. In Idaho we have a summer wardrobe, a winter wardrobe, etc. But in the DR we wear the same wardrobe every day of the year. In addition the humidity makes you perspire just putting on your socks, so the clothes have to be washed after you wear them one time usually. In the DR when a person asks how the weather is, I’ve heard them describe it as, “Today was a “one-shower day.” Some days of the year are “three-shower” days.
The bottom line to all this is that after two years our clothes were just plain worn out! “So why didn’t you just go downtown and buy some more clothes?” you ask? Well, the answer to that question could be the subject of another blog entry, and it is certainly the reason for many fruitless hours of frustrated searching by my wife and me in the DR. But to answer that question I will simply compose myself and answer calmly, “IT ISN’T THAT SIMPLE when you don’t know the language and can only choose from styles that are, shall we say, quite different!”
Consequently we came to the place sometime last year where we decided to wait until our trip to Idaho to replenish our wardrobe. Therefore one of the major objectives we prayed about was the basic necessity of appropriate clothing. Through another series of providential circumstances the Lord led us to find what we needed and we praise God for this provision of clothing.
Number 3 – Fellowship
What I have to say now may be more of a personal struggle than it is a principle of Christian living. I find that as soon as I leave the routine of normal living (in my case teaching school in another country) and do something different (in this case a whirlwind trip to Idaho) my walk with the Lord seems distant and contrived. I go through the motions the best I can as I juggle the unpredictable schedule each day … read the Bible, go to church, pray … but it still felt like it was two different worlds.
This is precisely why the Scripture warns us not to trust our changing feelings or emotions, so I guess it was a good exercise in faith. However, one exception to this was the contact with precious brothers and sisters in the Lord that we hadn’t seen for at least two years … and in some cases even longer.
During a time when solid churches are falling away from the foundation of the faith, and individuals are looking outside the authority of the Scriptures for answers to life, I found it solidly encouraging to have fellowshipped with three churches and a number of individuals who are continuing with the Lord and walking in the truth. My wife and I felt a little bit like John must have felt when he penned the words in 2 John 3:
"I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have
received a commandment from the Father."
One of the items we wanted to buy this summer was a cover for our Bible. We weren’t able to find that luxury item in the DR so we were using the boxes that our Bibles were shipped in. The leather cover that I chose has a picture of a tree etched on the front with a partial verse written under it that reads “Stand fast in the Lord.” Every time I open the Bible this year I want this to be my prayer.
Going back home was nostalgic. Memories flooded my mind … good memories … happy memories … of raising my family in Moscow … of growing up in southern Idaho. … and we appreciated in a new way the beauty of our State. I need to change mental gears and get ready for another year of work, but I am grateful for this whirlwind romance with nostalgia that God allowed in our lives this summer.
