They said this would happen upon reentry. The shattering.
Erik and Rowan picked me up at the airport. Smiles plastered wide, I embraced fully, leaned my weight into theirs and became part of the family again. Rowan’s delight in me, my return, brought back thoughts of children in Bolivia, their faces expectant with the hope of seeing the parent that abandoned them long ago.
With my suitcase in the trunk, I returned. Many parents in Bolivia never do.
I cry quiet in the car as we drive past fast-food joints on the interstate. My hard-shell heart starts to crack.
Everything I encounter is now seen through a different filter.
I’m in the produce section of the market, I’m holding potatoes. I lower my head, close my eyes to see Bolivian women, farming with worn hands and raw hearts, I hear their stories echo in my ribcage and I remember the bowls of fresh-plucked potatoes we were offered at each home. A woman comes up behind me, “They’ve gone up in price since yesterday.” She clicks her tongue in dismay at the added few cents, she adds a shake of her head for good measure.
More cracks. I’m splintered. Tears sting.
I’m standing in the cereal aisle. Stacks upon rows of brightly colored boxes howl at me and I try to focus in through the blur of the tears, barely being held back by the edge of my eyelids. I look for the snack that Rowan likes so much, trying to find the one that has the least amount of sugar. Quaker logo in-hand, I think of the family of ten. The Pablo’s. Eight children, one room. Little to no work and little to no food.
And it happens.
I shatter.
I lose my proverbial shit in front of the boxes of Frosted Flakes and I sit on the floor next to my shopping cart full of “necessities” and weep. Knees pulled into my chest, my arms folded on my knees, head hanging low in the dark between. Heavy, wet tears fall and I feel desperate for air. For hope.
Someone asked a few days ago if I experienced any culture shock while I was in Bolivia.
Whatever shock I experienced there doesn’t hold a stick to how I feel about coming home. Bittersweet seems too kind a word. Too gentle. My soul feels ravaged and I am laid out, peeled back and raw.
I oscillate between wanting to sell everything we own, and wallowing in a half-gallon carton of cookie dough ice cream and mindless movies to numb the remembering.
I’m doubting.
My writing wasn’t compelling enough. I didn’t say enough. I didn’t find enough sponsors for the kids. I set expectations for myself and now I’ve returned and I’m still looking at the bar I perched so high above me. I’m frozen. Unable to move. Even now, as I sit and type with my laptop perched on my legs, I question – what’s my next move?
Now that I have seen, I am responsible.
What do I do, now that I’m home, wrapped up in this American life? How do I continue the work that I started? How can I press forward? How can WE move forward, as a community of believers and big messes?
I have that old Sara Groves song in my head:
Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we areAnd I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
And maybe that’s all I can do right now. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other, stumbling and clumsy, add to the beauty. Make life just a little bit better for one person. Fight for that one child, that one moment that brings redemption in dark places.
I think of Maria. The beauty in her eyes and smile are God-gifted and exquisite and she is made in the image of her Maker. I had nothing to do with her inherent beauty as a child of God. But, by His grace and through the profound work of World Vision, I’m able to add to that beauty. Provide her with a little bit more. Make sure she sees a doctor every year. Has school supplies to study math. Remind her, from thousands of miles away that she is deeply loved, valued and prayed for.
And that’s what World Vision does. One child at a time. One family at a time. One community at a time. Build them up, one by one. Save the life of one, you save the life of many.
Will you add to the beauty and sponsor a child?
All photos © Amy Conner for World Vision
sweet nish, thank you for this. you do add to the beauty, and it matters.
Thanks, Suz. Your words mean so much.
I can’t imagine what it would be to go from here to there and here again. And how everything would be so different. How you would be so different.
Thank you for sharing pictures and stories (oh, the stories!) of hope and goodness and redemption. It is more than enough.
You bolster my faith & confidence, friend. Thank you. xo
Great writing Nish!!! Thank you for sharing! I hear and witness to what you said… we keep moving forward, one child at a time, building them up and helping a community. We all can do something. Miss you.
Thanks, Amy! I miss you!! xo
that was stunning. and heartrending. and raw. and i’m so glad you wrote it down and shared it with us. praying for wisdom and endurance for you, as you process and try not to push back and numb the feelings that have been brought up deep inside. to channel them and find direction. love your heart, Nish.
Thank you, Frelle. So, so much. It was raw… totally how I feel right now! Praying that I find direction, too.
Absolutely heart breaking and heart changing.
Steph
Thank you, Steph. And thanks for reading!
What a beautiful piece. So true, so raw, so real. To feel such change and experience such ministry is an incredible burden and a blessing. My prayers go with you as you seek to find your way on this path that God has called you to. The stories you’ve told and the message you’ve spread has spoken to many hearts, including my own. Thank you for sharing and bringing a much needed message to those of us who stayed behind.
Thanks for following along and allowing yourself to be changed, too… even from all the way at home. It means so much that you would read here and pray along with us.
oy… wow. that was someone hitting my cerebrum with a cattle prod. reentry is a wild, beautiful process- mostly because He’s there putting us back together with that glue known as grace. thank you for sharing. can’t wait to see what kind of a plan He hatches in your heart.
The glue of grace. Yes. What a beautiful way to describe that. Thanks for reading, Missa.
I’m standing with you, Nish.
Praying for you tonight, as I lay my head down to sleep.
Thank you, sweet friend. Love you.
I want to hold you. xo. Me, too. Me, too.
I miss you so much!
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Ah, the cereal aisle will do it every time. Or even worse, the dog food aisle. Bag upon 20-lb bag of delicious food, and even some special food for the overweight dogs. Doggy chew treats that keep their breath minty fresh. And toys. And nail clippers. And on and on.
Come out of her, my people.
Yes. All of this. Even as an owner and lover of two dogs, I still pull back and scratch my head and think… “Really?”
Just wanted you to know how very much your writing allowed me to grasp. ( I just returned from time in a Mexican jungle village…conditions were similar.) We have sponsored children with WV for years. We have been faithful to that. But, like you, I’m thinking wild thoughts of selling everything as well.
I hope you will grant me permission to use your blog posts in my Economics class. I teach seniors in high school, at a private Christian School. I promise to rightly rock their worlds. It’s something else that I can do…and I’m good at it.
I’d be incredibly honored if you’d read a bit that I wrote on our experience in Mexico. About the last 10 entries in my blog. ( I don’t know what else to write about now…I’ll find the way back to youth and school stuff somehow, sometime.)
For the record, the lives of the young people who went with us are duly ruined. Though honestly, those students were already on the path to living lives of great purpose and compassion.
I appreciate your words, they matter.
You are welcome to use these words however you see fit with your students. May hearts be changed and future sponsors be born. Wreck ‘em.
Just know that you were enough to get one more little boy sponsored.
Love you. Always.
You’re my hero. Thanks for sponsoring. You changed a little boy’s life & the life of his family.
Oh, girl. xo
Thanks for feeling with me. xo
Nish, I wonder a lot of the same things 4 months removed from a service trip to Guatemala City. What can I do now that I’m back. I know that’s where trusting God comes in. I can’t change things on my own and I can only pray and trust God.
Thank you for your honesty and for going to Bolivia and telling the story to so many.
I’ve been in those shoes. Reverse culture shock is rough, but of course it (unfortunately?) wears off after a while. I pray that your soul continues to feel that disturbance (sorry!
, and that you are able to channel that into a permanent part in His bigger picture for the poor. The stats are against you (most STers remain unchanged years later), but I think you have the eyes to see and the ears to really hear what God is teaching you through this experience. You’ve already shared so much with your readers, and inspired so many. Your heart shines through your writing with honest and true intentions. Thank-you for being willing to be shattered open – where would the world be without people like you?
“I oscillate between wanting to sell everything we own, and wallowing in a half-gallon carton of cookie dough ice cream and mindless movies to numb the remembering…Now that I have seen, I am responsible.”
My very being resonates with these words you’ve written. For me, it’s a near-daily battle within myself.
WTF.
LJ
I remember a missions leader once praying that our experience in the inner-city would be like a pebble forever in our shoe. Always reminding us; always bothering us. He hoped we would never quite be comfortable again. Twelve years later we still aren’t. My prayer for you is the same. Discomfort changes the world.
Peace to you–
Stephanie Hillberry from Make Home Make Sense
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Speechless. tears. Your words and your offering are beautiful.
i just got back from cambodia with another mission & sponsorship organization. i feel the same way you do! it was more of a shock coming home than ever going over. i’ve been home almost a month now but it’s a daily one foot in front of the other thing. i enjoyed following the bolivia bloggers through WV!
Thank you for your honest words. Seeing real need is always overwhelming, but if we allow it to paralyze us, the world remains unchanged. Continue sharing what you saw in Bolivia and you will plant seeds in others to pitch in and do what they can to help. Don’t give up, you are making a difference!
I appreciate your honesty and can relate to the insensibility of it all. I returned from Africa in March, my first-ever foreign mission trip, and was … broken. Simlpy broken. I ache to return, it pains me to see the opulence all around me, and the lack of gratitude. I constantly have to remind myself that I personally have fed that unfortunate norm in the past by catering to my neice and nephew, spoiling them more for my sake than for theirs.
Living side-by-side with people in poverty is reality. The experience has texture and staying-power. I’m still finding, 6 months later, that I’m realizing new things about that experience that I just didn’t have the capacity to process at the time. I can’t wait to hear in the coming weeks and months how this experience had chaned your life in big and small ways.
One thing I forgot – although it might be true that most people aren’t changed years later (I don’t know the statistics myself,) I’ve found that the people in my group who HAVE remained changed (3 years later), are those that have been purposeful about making specific changes in their lives and who are constantly seeking God to that end.
Hold on to Bolivia and what God is showing you through that experience in literal and figurative ways, and He is ALWAYS faithful when we humly seek the GOOD PLAN He has for us!
This reminds me of how I felt after watching The Stoning of Soraya M. Wrecked. Heartbroken. Desperately praying, “What can I do?”
This was profoundly beautiful. I could literally see you in my own cereal box aisle having a meltdown. Oh, that all of our hearts would be so tender.
Oh my…this post was beyond beautiful, and touched my heart. It’s been on my heart to sponsor a child, and I’ve been doing some research that lead me to your tender words. You inspired me, and I’m sure many others, and you positively add to the beauty. Thank-you so much for sharing.<3
<3Erin
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