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Welcome Forward
Going Deeper - explore
various topics
So, you’re going on a trip. And not just any trip, a trip to a
place foreign to you, to meet people of a culture foreign to you. And those
people will meet you--a person from a place and culture foreign to them.
Foreign will meet foreign and ...what else? You will become at least a bit
familiar with each other. And you may become a bit foreign to yourself.
As you prepare for your adventure, take a look at yourself. Get to know not
only the “inside story” of your reasons for going and your hopes and fears
about the trip. Try to see yourself as you might be seen by those you
encounter.
When you return, people will welcome you home. As you begin to tell the story
of your adventure, they will perceive something different in you. You will
gaze at yourself in the mirror and the reflection will be familiar, yet
foreign.
See the following articles:
(A) Home Again as a New
Creation: After the Trip
In this reading, you will get to look at your (new) post-trip
self, to see yourself in a new way.
Coming home requires a reassessment of yourself. Some of the earth
from your experience is now part of you. You have been recreated
with the dust of this new place. Your ears still ring with new
sounds. Your mouth still tastes the new spices. The image you see
in the mirror reflects a people and place which were foreign, but
now are a part of you. You do not readily recognize yourself in
the jumble of feelings. The image resembles one in a funhouse
mirror. You worry that family and friends will see a distorted you
and laugh.
(B) Seeing Yourself Coming: How Others May See You
In this reading you will consider
how you might be seen by those you will visit.
As you examine yourself in the mirror, consider how you
may be perceived when you walk into the village, the church, the
home of your hosts. Their perspectives can help you know yourself
in new and world-encompassing ways.
As you travel on your adventure, others share the road with
you. You adjust your sights so you keep the others in view and know where they
are in relation to you. You check your speed and position as a way of staying
with the experience of those around you. You focus on those around you, not on
yourself. Dropping your focus on yourself makes you vulnerable to the ways of
those around you. Collision of world views, faith perspectives, perceptions of
life is a possibility--both on the trip and when you return home.
See the following articles:
(A) Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They
Appear: New
Things Coming Up Around You
In this reading you will discover that you need to open yourself
to the influence of those on the road with you.
It’s not only what you see in front of you as you travel which
affects your experience. As in driving, those coming up around you
impinge on your experience. You came on the trip with your own
goals, hopes, expectations. As a “temporary local,” you see that
the realities of life in this place are closer to touching the
reality of your life than you may have at first imagined.
(B) Collision is Possible: Crashing and
Clashing with New Realities
In this reading you will consider the
friction that your travel experiences may cause in your life.
Some
things you encounter may shake up your current understanding about
the world and your place in it. You may find yourself at odds with
some of what you are seeing and hearing. Pay attention to these
difficult impacts and you’ll be able to interpret them in more
constructive ways.
Dancers in a studio use the mirrors on the walls to see
themselves as part of the whole dance. Traveling requires much the same
attention to the whole company with which you travel. You observe if you are
in step with those around you. You can see if you are walking hand in hand.
You can notice if you are in partnership or if you are trying to pull others
your own direction.
Convex mirrors alert you to things out of your sight, but headed toward you
from around a corner. They help you anticipate encounters and prepare to meet
them. See the following articles:
(A) Mirror on the Wall:
A Member of the Company
This reading will help you see how you fit into
this new group, the travelers and hosts who accompany each other.
You see yourself in a whole new company of people. The dance is
different from your usual dance. The beat and the tempo may seem
new, even out of sync with your natural rhythms. These new people
are part of the same creation into which you were born, yet you
may sense the orders of creation being shaken up a bit. At the
least, creation as you knew it is evolving into something new. It
may be that your sense of the church is shaken. You may wonder how
to accompany these people into their lives. You are in the midst
of a new community, with an opportunity to be a renewed person in
it.
(B) No Crystal Ball: Dealing With
Anticipation
Here you will explore ways to catch a glimpse of what may lie
ahead for you on this journey.
There is no crystal ball to show
you the future. But you can take some time to learn about the
people, the land, the culture that you will visit. This knowledge
will bring with it emotions such as excitement, apprehension, and
fear as you consider the encounter. This reading examines both the
information and the feelings you will gather.
A good driver checks the rear view mirror at regular
intervals. It is good to know what is behind you, and how far behind you it
is. Yet, if you fix your gaze on the past, your forward journey may halt, or
become reckless and drift off course.See the
following articles:
(A) Traveling Unplugged: What
not to Bring
In this reading you will contemplate what to leave behind with
family or friends.
You kissed your family goodbye and left them waving at the airport
gate. When you pass through customs at your destination, you may
need to declare some attitudes and habits in order to become a
“temporary local.” Communication with home offers security in the
midst of uncertainty. Detaching yourself from your computer, cell
phone, palm pilot, or wrist watch may leave you feeling naked,
vulnerable. To travel well in this new place you cannot fix your
gaze on home for too long.
(B) Behind, But Not Forgotten: Living With
Lingering Memories
In this reading you will consider the possibility of culture shock
upon your return home.
You come back to your old life being chased
by something new. The trip is behind you but still in view, still
on the road with you. You may want to speed away from it, lose it
in the dust of your “regular life.” You may want to travel more
slowly now so that you don’t lose sight of it. Traveling on your
home roads is different because of those images you see when you
glance back at the trip.
Just as you have seen reflections of yourself and the world,
you provide others with a reflection. Those you visit will glimpse your home
through you. Those at home will glimpse your travel experiences through you.
You are a window on the world for others. You want to catch the right light so
that you give off the best reflection possible.See
the following articles:
(A)
Put Your Best Face
Forward: Reflecting God’s Grace as You Travel
In this selection you will read about grace as the cloak in which
you dress yourself so that people see the image of God reflected
in you.
Most of those you visit know North America only through you and
visitors like you. Your actions have power to show them an
extended image of God; or to confirm the worst they have heard of
your culture. You may find yourself overly conscious of the
differences between your life and the life of those you encounter.
(B) Through the Looking Glass: Coming Out
on the Other Side of the Experience
This reading acknowledges that the transformation in you is real.
When you identify what has changed in you and how the new you fits
into the old environment, your relationships at home are
challenged. You seek an honest, clear, grace-filled way to reflect
the vision of the world you have been privileged to glimpse. You
wonder if those around you really want to know. You want to pass
through to the other side.
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