Does God Still Work in Chaos? – Returning
As cases of COVID began increasing globally, our contingency team began reminding GSI workers to review their emergency plans for disaster situations. Having pre-planned action steps can bring focus and clarity when quick decisions are needed. This plan is a crucial component of life overseas, but sometimes plans get altered. For one GSI worker, a country shutdown resulted in their visa not being extended at the pandemic’s peak. The only option was to return home when flights were scarce. Can God still work when a missionary is pulled away from his/her country of service? Read what one field worker learned as they returned “home.”
I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to learn the national language of a country that is home to hundreds of unreached, unengaged people groups. One key element to the language learning process, and our ministry’s ultimate goals, is immersion. I must live life, side by side, with native speakers so I can learn to communicate that feels natural to them. This also gives me opportunity to learn and observe as much of the culture as possible. Even with all the great things we can do online or over Zoom now, you can’t share life with someone through a screen.
Around mid-March, everything in my host country began to shut down due to COVID. Schools were closed, the majority of shops were shut down, and people were strongly discouraged from leaving their homes or gathering together. All of this brought my language study to a halt. I tried to make the best of the situation and focus on review and planning while waiting to see how the pandemic played out.
After several months of waiting, my visa expired. Typically, that would mean a 2-3 day trip to the embassy in a neighboring country to apply for a new one. However, all of the embassies were closed, and none of the neighboring countries accepted international travelers. At that point, it became pretty clear that my only option was to return to the US until things opened back up.
While I’ll admit that I was relieved in some ways to be returning home, I was also worried about how this would affect my long-term plans. How would I make up for this lost time? How would I make up the language I would inevitably lose during the time home? How would I maintain the relationships I was just starting to see flourish here?
As I was sitting on the plane watching the mountains surrounding my city getting smaller and eventually dissolving into the ocean and clouds, I suddenly felt that specific sadness of leaving home. It caught me off guard, as I would have never called this city home out loud. I realized that for the last year and a half I had really just been gritting my teeth and had a “let’s just get through this” kind of attitude. I didn’t feel any sense of belonging to this place that I was trying to stay in. At that moment, the Lord opened my eyes, and I finally understood what it means to belong to two places. I have a place that is home because that’s where I grew up, and it’s where my family lives; and I have a place that is home because I’m choosing to make it so, out of obedience to the Lord’s call and a burden for the unreached people there that have yet to hear about God’s eternal home.
Nothing that has happened over the past year has caught God by surprise. We know that He is working even in the chaos and the uncertainty. Our focus and priority are still to love and serve Him, and we are trusting that He will use this season to grow and prepare them for when He reopens the doors to return “home.”