I had engaged in fierce battles with
myself, Lomalinda, and God, so it took me a while to recognize it, but finally
it sunk in: If I wanted to transition out of culture shock and settle in well
at Lomalinda, I’d have to change my perspective.
I’d have to notice
the good that was going on around me and my family.
The kids,
Matt and Karen, had met friends and enjoyed playing with them. Matt was
especially enjoying adventures the neighbor boy, Glenny, was taking him on—like
throwing rocks at bulls wandering through the neighborhood and fishing for piranhas
and chasing giant cockroaches. And playing with boa constrictors.
Lomalinda’s
birdsongs sounded different from the ones I’d enjoyed back home, but I decided
to find the beauty in them. And my kids had parrots living in their yard! Parrots!
That would never have happened back home in Seattle.
On one of our
first days in Lomalinda, Ron and Lois Metzger introduced themselves and invited
us to dinner. Their yard teemed with tropical plants and flowers, including
orchids. Orchids! And Glenny’s big brother Tommy grew orchids in a special shed
he rigged up. Dozens of other brightly colored flowers grew all around Lomalinda. Even though they weren’t familiar to me—like bougainvillea—I began
to notice their intense beauty.
During our
first two weeks, we received a dozen dinner invitations from our new
colleagues. They lavished their welcomes on us.
We soon learned that hosting friends
for meals was the most common way people entertained themselves. We had no
televisions or movie theater, and the world then knew nothing of videos, VCRs,
the Internet, PCs, laptops, iPads, or cell phones. Many folks played table
games and read books in the evenings, but the most popular social pastime was
enjoying dinner with other families.
Long before we landed in Lomalinda,
her people figured out the importance of connecting. “Much more happens at a
meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst,” Henri Nouwen wrote. “Around
the table we become family, friends, and community, yes, a body.” (Bread for the Journey)
Lomalinda’s people got it—we needed each other. Though I
didn’t yet recognize it, I
had arrived at a God-scheduled appointment. He wanted me to see the community as
His hands and feet. He wanted me to look into their eyes and see His. When a
family invited us to join them at their dinner table, He wanted me to see them
feeding His lambs.
God and
Lomalinda’s people heaped upon us one blessing after another after another.
Life was going to be good there.
I would have
to extend grace to myself, though, because I would make progress in fits and
starts. Some days I took one step forward and two steps back.
But like Barbara Johnson said, “If things are tough, remember that every flower that ever
bloomed had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there.”
Yes, I’d have
to go through a lot of “dirt”—doubts, difficult transitions, tears,
homesickness, despair—before I could bloom where I was planted.
But I did bloom, eventually.
I did bloom where I was planted!
Barbara
continues:
“The Almighty
Father will use life’s reverses to move you forward.”
And He did.
What seemed
like reverses turned out to be tools God used to move me forward and upward.
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