Connecting Worlds

I am writing this while in the airport in Kazakhstan with missionary Joyce Chellis and her son Travis. Travis is leaving after his 2-week visit to his mother. It’s his first time to visit the place that has been home to his mother for nearly 13 years now. We had a nice chat on the way here about his experience. He said it sort of “gives a face” to what his mother has been doing. He had heard her stories, seen pictures, read letters. But now he can connect her life with his own experiences here.

This makes me mindful of one of the difficulties for the missionary that may catch a person by surprise. When you live some where for an extended period of time, it becomes an important part of your life. People become dear friends and the list of shared experiences grows in the place of ministry. And yet there are also friends and family back in the home country with a list of shared experiences. So the missionary and the missionary kids (MKs) feel in a way that they exist in two totally distinct worlds.

With our own family, we saw how our children eagerly desired that there would be connections between the worlds. The first time that their grandparents met some of the other members of our team on home leave in the US was a huge blessing. Finally the two worlds had at least some connection. I remember when Sherry Waid, a friend from our home church in Kentucky, came to visit us two years into our life in Kazakhstan. She experienced our life and met our friends. It was a huge blessing for us to have the connection and it created a bond with her that continues on today 10 years later, even though we don’t often have a chance to see one another.

So I’m wrapping this up as Joyce says “bye” to Travis, knowing now that when she speaks of the people and village she has grown to love, he will have a greater connection to this important part of her life. That will be a blessing to both of them that will now be shared for the rest of their lives.