Shaun Groves
On the last night of every Compassion Bloggers trip we sit around a table together and talk about how to go back home. Because re-entry is a peculiar and scary thing.
We talk about the myriad responses we may have when we get there. There’s no telling what’s going to happen when a person goes from slum to Super Target.
Some people are numb, unable to feel anything.
Some are battered by guilt and embarrassment over how easy their life is.
Some feel inexplicably sad, over nothing…or everything.
Some lose their drive and ambition entirely and quit blogging.
Some get angry.
And, I tell the bloggers, some people experience all of this in one afternoon!
No matter what you feel, I tell them, it’s normal. You’re not the only one.
I’m not a trained counselor. I’m not a medical doctor or seminary grad either. My expertise on this subject comes from experience. Fifteen times now I’ve re-entered normal life a little less normal than when I left it. And every re-entry experience has been different.
I’ve wanted to sell everything, give it to the poor, and live in a cardboard box. I’ve thrown a kid’s food – plate and all – in the trash when she said she didn’t like what we were having for dinner. I’ve curled up in bed, pulled the covers over my head, and tried to pray to a God I felt I’d left behind on another continent. I’ve been manic, driven, passionate, throwing myself into work from early in the morning to late at night. And I’ve struggled to feel anything at all.
And today I’m angry. There’s no particular reason for it. Well, I’ve been angry for a few days now and there have been things that have set it off but none of them are rational. The amount of anger I feel is disproportionate to what I blame it on. What would usually annoy is making my blood boil.
So I walk away, take deep breaths, drink hot tea, vent to Becky and tell God who I think He should send a plague to next…nothing life-threatening…maybe boils or some other minor pestilence. Humor helps too. And confession.
I know this is normal. I’m not the only one.
Kit says:
I’m not sure what to say, but I wanted to thank you for sharing this with us. I appreciate it.
lindley says:
I echo what Kit said. Not sure anything I could say could help, and I know you aren’t looking for help. But, I also appreciate you sharing that with us. I felt a little similar today (not in the I’ve been where you’ve been and seen what you’ve seen sense) and when I went to blog, just none of was coming out of my heart like I was feeling it, and so I just erased it. Can’t express it, but feeling it for sure. I’m thankful for your words.
Christine says:
I’m praying for your peace, Shaun. Not the kind of peace where you can excuse yourself from doing something about what you’ve seen. But the peace that is a Person. That His presence will so infiltrate your heart and mind that you can rest in the truth of his sovereignty and love and justice.
Laura says:
YES. Re-entry was hard for me too, both times last year. I understand the anger, the numbness, the sadness, the apathy. And then the guilt for finally acclimating to a first-world country and complaining about first-world problems.
I understand. 🙂
Amy says:
I get it. Re-entry is hard. Thanks for being transparent and not pretending that everything is ok.
Kris says:
Praying for you, Shaun. And the rest of the team. Your honesty is a gift. God knows how you feel, and there’s a lot of comfort in that. Hang on, brother. Praying you through this hard season.
Sandy says:
(Forgive me for being forward) anger can be good. Why don’t you ask God what to do with it? (Genuine suggestion – not intended as a trite response)
Reading this, I am thanking God for you and people like you. Thank you. I will pray for you.
Janet says:
Thank you for expressing yourself … it has helped me understand my brother who used to do a lot of filming in Central Africa. It certainly changed his value system.
Kelli says:
Praying for you, friend. I haven’t quite been the same since re-entry last year. I keep thinking maybe one day I’ll wake up and feel normal again, but that’s not the point, is it? What good would it be if I wasn’t changed permanently.
I’m angry, too. And I still struggle every single day with disappointment – disappointment in God, in man, in this fallen and wicked earth. I wrestle and I cry a lot.
We took our kids on a mission trip to Dominican Republic last week where they saw children living in the most desperate of situations. I worried about how they would respond on re-entry. I feared maybe it would be too much for them.
It was the most beautiful thing to see them respond. They didn’t focus on the negative. They weren’t overwhelmed by the great need. Where I get frustrated at how much there is still to do, how many children are suffering, my kids saw only the beauty that was already there. They saw people helping and they remember the children smiling when they received a hot meal and a few little trinkets from the dollar store.
They see the hope and they cling to that. I am trying to soak up their childlike faith as much as I can as we re-enter this life as a family.
TCobb says:
Yes! This!!!
“It was the most beautiful thing to see them respond. They didn’t focus on the negative. They weren’t overwhelmed by the great need.”
I’ve been processing EXACTLY this over the course of the past year. My daughter went on her first overseas mission trip last year, to rural Romania. Because she was not even a teenager yet, my husband and I required that she ask an adult family-member to accompany her. My husband and I, my parents, and my siblings have all served on multiple teams, so she had her pick. She chose my dad. He said it was the hardest trip he’s ever done…and he’s served in Peru, Guatemala, the dump in Brazil… But this was beyond compare.
My daughter’s response? “I want to go back! And I want to take my friends!”
And the thing that made the difference? She saw everything through lenses of hope! She embraced what WAS with child-like faith. She didn’t wrestle with what could be or should be, what wasn’t. She just jumped right into the midst and accepted what was…and loved the old people and the children and the precious pastor and his wife… and believed with all her heart that God had not abandoned or forsaken them but that He was there working in the midst.
I can’t stop thinking about it… about that child-like faith and what God can do when we trust Him like that…about how He wants us to trust Him like that.
Prudence says:
When I got back from Moldova I got angry. Angry with God, angry with the world. I had an ugly cry in an Einstein’s Bagels parking lot. Nobody told me about the depression & anger that hits after doing one of these trips. The same day that the anger hit I had a friend sit across from me and say yes, I get it. I’ve been there. It helped. Re-entry has been the hardest thing, and it’s now over six months since I’ve been home.
Flower Patch Farmgirl says:
I get it. I go through the full range of emotions weekly after simply spending time with my friends across town, the one in prison, the one who won’t stop knocking on my door. These friends live so differently than I do, they fight against a world who doesn’t bother trying to understand them. Some days I’m in love and other days I want to run away but I always know this: they’re my family now.
It isn’t comparable to 3rd world poverty, but I struggle all the same to understand why my marble rolled to this particular life when just one small tilt would have sent me somewhere else.
Life was so much easier when I never had to feel these things. But I’ll never stop being thankful for the grace that allows me to see, in tiny, wrenching increments, a bit of what the world beyond *me* looks like.
Lauren Casper says:
Oh I get this so much. My first reentry was the hardest, but it’s never easy. Frustrated. That’s what it was for me.
Debbie says:
Love this. I have traveled on three medical mission trips. Sharing my pictures and stories helped me working through all these stages. I have a friend on the way home from Colombia (with Compassion) and one on the way to Madagascar (with J Myer ministries). I shared this blog with them via Facebook. Thanks!
valerie says:
I just wanted to say thanks for sharing this. I have not dealt with re-entry well, and it helps so much to hear someone say all I’ve felt is “normal”. I haven’t thrown my child’s dinner in the trash, but I sure have sent them to bed without dinner. And made one sit at the table with nothing to eat while the rest of the family had dinner. My kids say mama is mean when she comes back from Africa. I don’t do it well at all. I think I’ve been through every emotion you listed, and have wondered why in the world I can’t get it together. It helps so much to know there’s not something just really wrong with me.
Amy says:
I’m wandering around your blog here looking for something that might help prepare me to leave on Friday, and I stumble on this, the thing I know deep down Im most afraid of. My husband and I leave our three kids and freakishly wealthy life here in the US for 15 days this Friday. We are off to Zimbabwe, for what I have no idea. I know the physical agenda, I know the least of these we are going to visit, I know the game plan, but I kinda sense what God’s after has nothing to do with the our game plan. I think we have a heart issue He’s after. I think. I’m both terrified and ecstatic, and confused at why Im feeling both. Thanks for being real here. Take care Shaun.
Yvonne says:
I think that is the one thing that scares me most about my upcoming January trip with Compassion to Mexico. My feelings and how I will handle things when I get back. Often times during worship at church now, I get caught up in thinking about our trip, what I am going to see, the people who will be a blessing to me, the exteme poverty that I have never seen before, and I get overwhelmed with tears. I know God has been preparing me for this trip and I am so thankful for you and the many others who have gone on these trips and shared your hearts with us, before, during, and after your trips. I believe it helps each one of us who will be experiencing these trips know that there will be a rush of difference emotions. And it is normal.
Michelle ~ Blogging from the Boonies says:
I’m already dealing with emotions and I’m not even there and back yet! I worry how I will cope coming back to the pre-Christmas spend-fest. I have been in prayer because I know my heart could easily get cynical and judgemental. Easily.
I’m in prayer over it already! Lord, give me grace!
Anna says:
yes! no one told me that re-entry would be hard! I spent a couple weeks in Uganda 2 years ago, and seriously was depressed for several months when I came home. wish I had known it was normal AND wish I had gotten help!
Brayden says:
Thank you so much for this post. I just returned from a six week trip to Uganda. I’ve been back for about two weeks, and the first week I was so angry and unable to explain it. It really helped to read this and see that others go through this as well.
–Brayden