Homesickness strikes again!

Now that you have that little update on teaching, I’ll share a little more of my spiritual and emotional struggles with you.

This past Wednesday night, we had a large group team devotions night.  This means all nine teams got together and one of ELIC’s Hong Kong representatives led us in reflection, worship, and prayer.  As part of the reflection, we filled out a sheet asking us questions regarding things like what we had been praying about, reading about in His Word, singing about, thinking about, etc…

Through all of that reflection, I realized I’d been thinking a lot about home, but also about my future.  Living both in the past, present, and future was wearing me down.  While trying to plan for my students and spend time praying for their lives, I was also wishing I was home and trying to figure out my future after graduation.  All of this simply kept pushing me to question, “Why am I in Asia?”  I’m not sure that God’s calling me to teach overseas, at least not right away—my constant homesickness in Asia has taught me that much. 

However, that realization has only made me miss home more.  Add to that my best friend getting engaged, and I was a mess Thursday night.  When I saw the news on Facebook, I burst into tears but was surrounded by encouraging friends and hugs.  When two more friends got engaged the next night, the desire to head home was overwhelming.  I spent my third Friday night away from home listening to one of Dad’s sermons as I fell asleep before supper and slept until almost lunchtime on Saturday.

Fortunately, a good friend of mine, Jessica Glenn, has made my Saturday go quite a lot better.  We spent the afternoon writing lesson plans at a Pacific Coast Coffee Shop one bus ride from our dormitory, headed back to campus and wrote a few more while sitting outside the canteen.  Now we’re watching a movie in Jessica’s room with Kathleen, a girl on Jess’s team, and waiting for some other girls to join us before we call to order dinner.  Tonight I’ll get to skype my best friend who got engaged and hopefully go to bed on time before church across the island in the morning.

All in all, I know I’ll make it.  With nine more days of teaching, I know I’ll have some more rough days, but I know I’ll also have some good days.  I’m finding my peace in knowing that God has brought me here, so I will continue to serve Him and share the Good News with the people here in Hong Kong.

Prayers:

-For my team to work better together; less frustration; less impatience

-For my students to be more excited, responsive, and come to class with much less attitude J

-For my homesickness to be alleviated by a deeper desire to serve God and seek the Kingdom’s needs I’m recognizing all over Hong Kong