On the Road Again

Bolivia already feels like it happened years ago. It’s only been a little over a week, but everything is just a distant memory. This is not how I prefer to feel, but, if I’m to be true to myself, this is an accurate description of my feelings. I feel like I’m trying to hold on to the memories so they don’t escape, but they already seem to be slipping away. I’ve been trying to process my time at Familia Feliz, but I’ve run into a few obstacles.

This past week has been driven by an unparalleled amount of busyness. Upon arrival, I was reunited with my family and got my first look at my new home in Ooltewah, TN. I had lived there with a couple of friends, Josh and Sam Marin, the summer before leaving, but without my family nor any furniture there. It doesn’t feel as much like home as Merced or Familia Feliz, but I think it’ll grow on me with time. It was pleasant being able to take a hot shower and sleep on a soft, yet ridiculously large bed (I never would’ve considered a queen bed excessive for one person before this last year).

The next day, I attended Sabbath School and church with my family. I genuinely missed several aspects of Sabbath in Bolivia. There wasn’t the Sabbath circle at sundown on Friday night, the stressful joy of teaching Sabbath school, the traditional hymns and Sabbath service, nor the Sabbath circle to close the Sabbath. It was different, but I enjoyed it, nonetheless. The best part of the day was having some friends over for lunch to catch up.

With the Sabbath over, the work began. I unpacked everything, organized my room, set up my new phone (you may remember the old one was on its last leg in Bolivia), and re-packed my things for summer camp. Before I knew it, my weekend at home was over, and I was loading my things into the back of my truck for the road trip across the country with Corbin and the Marin brothers (same ones who lived in the house during the summer). I hadn’t had a whole lot of time to process being back, but I figured I would have plenty of time while on our trip.

As we sped towards St. Louis, I started to think about how weird it was to be back in the U.S. First and foremost in my mind was the excessive amount of stuff. Although not in the U.S., Bogotá was the first airport that I came to that was quite developed. It was mind-blowing to walk down the length of the airport and see how many stores and products there were. I felt the same when I first looked into my closet full of the things I had left behind. I had ended up donating half my closet and throwing out quite a bit until I was satisfied with the amount of stuff I had.

I also considered how overdue I was for a break from the kids. It was really nice to just be with other young adults with seemingly no responsibilities--a feeling I haven’t had for quite a while. There is a bit of a clincher, though. During Christmas vacation, I remember feeling the exact same way, but very thankful when I returned to the kids after the month-long break. I’m afraid that I will be subconsciously expecting the same to occur, but this time I won’t be returning to the kids. I will be working at summer camp with kids, but after that, my focus will go back to me, me, me. I can think of nothing more self-centered, yet obligatory, than returning to study after a year of being a student missionary. I’m not looking forward to that upcoming aspect of school.

I continued trying to “process” and came up blank. I’m not sure if I’m still in shock of being back, or if there really isn’t that much to process. I miss the kids, the staff, and Rurre, but I just consider this a reminder of the growing experiences I had that will impact me in the future--especially as Camp Wawona’s boys’ director.

Having been back a week, the U.S. already feels pretty normal again. I remember seeing Americans for the first time again and laughing at their--let’s say-- “individuality”. Even that has already become the norm again. I feel like I readjusted extremely fast, which worries me that I didn’t readjust completely, or that I wasn’t as culturally aware as I thought.

Despite my confusion in reintegrating culturally and emotionally, I have been very blessed in my social and physical reintegration. The credit goes to none other than the road trip. It may seem that spending a week in close quarters with the same three guys would strain my social reintegration, but it’s actually just what I needed. It helps that all three are extremely close and important to me. We’ve had some great, deep conversations which have helped me to peer introspectively and figure some things out. I’ve also had the best reintroduction I could have ever imagined to the beauty of my country.

We started out by going to St. Louis where the Marin brothers split off to go to the Arch, while Corbin and I went to the City Museum--best described as an adult jungle-gym with structures, sculptures, scrapped vehicles, and multiple-story slides to climb and play around on. After camping the night outside of St. Louis, we continued on to Kansas City where Corbin and I saw a Royals baseball game (Number 13 of 30 towards Corbin’s goal of seeing a game in every park). We then drove through the night to get to Boulder, CO where we did a short hike in the afternoon. After Boulder, we followed a lonely road up to Glacier Valley Ranch (GVR), a SDA summer camp where Sam had scored us some free camping.

At GVR, we were greeted warmly and given the freedom to set up our tents anywhere we liked. We chose a beautiful spot at the center of the camp with a lake and snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. It turned out that they were midway through their staff week, and we got to mingle with some of the staff and encountered some old friends. They loved us so much that they invited us to have breakfast with them and let us take some canoes out onto the lake. It was such a blessing to see old friends, the beauty of God’s nature, and so much hospitality all in the same place.

Our next point of interest was Yellowstone National Park. I can’t even begin to describe the beauty we witnessed. Bolivia was beautiful in its own right, but I am so proud to call this beautiful country my home. I’ll let the pictures below speak for themselves. Tonight we find ourselves in Boise, ID at the house of some old family friends. Tomorrow will finish our trip as we drive to Yosemite where Josh and I will stay for the duration of summer camp.

The whole trip has been an amazing way to re-familiarize myself with the States. All along the way, I’ve seen God’s hand at work in our conversations, the beauty of nature, and even through complete strangers that we’ve met along the way. We’ve met so many high quality people, each with their own story. Most memorable was probably the guy we met at a gas station who returned a sleeping pad that blew out of the back of our truck. There is a lot of evidence that God is still right beside me no matter the circumstances I find myself in. Unfortunately, I haven’t been quite so loyal.

So far, I have only covered four aspects of reintegration in this post. The last is spiritual reintegration. My spiritual life grew stronger than ever during my year as an SM, but I’ve already failed in my first week back. Being so busy, I didn’t make time for the most important aspect of life: God. It pains me to write this for all to read, but I think it can serve another purpose. This is a call to myself as much as anyone. If your spiritual life has been off for the past week, month, year, etc., kick it in gear now. Let’s hold ourselves accountable and not let abnormal circumstances be an excuse. Let’s prioritize the important things in life, and I will make it my prayer that you, and I, will find God at the top of that list.

TL;DR

My memories of Bolivia are already starting to get foggy. I’m trying to hang on to them, but it’s hard when the busyness of life leaves little time for processing. I re-familiarized myself with hot showers and soft beds, but felt a hole when it came time for church and Sabbath school. Just 72 hours after landing, I was back on the road again to Camp Wawona in Yosemite. I processed America’s consumerism, “individuality”, and my collection of junk before realizing I don’t have that much to process. Whether that’s the truth or not, I’ve been able to reintegrate far better socially and physically in my home country. We’ve had some crazy, memorable experiences on our trip, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve failed spiritually since coming home, but it’s time to bounce back.