Coming Back to a Different Kind of Home

My mom just got back from a medical mission trip to Madagascar.  When I saw her on skype I asked her how it went and she just broke down into tears.  It was similar to what I did when I would come back from mission trip to Malawi.  

After you experience a world so full of suffering and work so hard towards helping any way you can, when you return home everything is different.  The air smells different, the sounds, the way your sheets and blankets feel in bed.  It seems foreign because you are noticing things you never noticed before.  

You feel a sense of guilt from all the things you have while also a feeling of gratefulness for being born where you were through no decision of your own, you were given the world.  

The price of coffee, your bagel, the little trinkets in your kitchen.  The little things that scream to you how much better you have it and you think about those that you met who are really suffering.

It is very difficult returning from trips like that no matter how long you were there, they change you.  They make you feel the pain of others that is hard to set aside when the team packs up and heads home.  

Helping is expensive.  The air fare, the equipment, the feeding programs, the donations and services to others, the luggage fees.  It is also a major financial sacrifice.  You could buy a vehicle for the cost of one 2 week long mission trip to Africa.

Please support missionaries not only financially but in prayer, letters, emails, hugs and an understanding of the mixed feelings they come back with.

I'm really proud of you mom and I know the 900 patients you saw in 4 days will forever remember the help you and your team gave them.  Being sick without proper care is one of the scariest things to have to live through and you guys helped them with that. 

God's blessings to all of you and your patients!