One month and 7 days ago, I stepped off of an airplane and onto American soil for the first time in 5 weeks. I hugged the necks of my mom, dad and brother and tried to process the fact that I was actually home. Surprisingly, I didn’t actually cry at the gate like I had imagined myself doing in so many anticipatory daydreams – but the joy that I felt to finally be home was indescribable. After an adventure that seemed like it lasted for ages and yet passed by so quickly, I was back.

28 days ago, I came home again. I spent 8 hours in the car with my family and let nostalgia wash over me as we drove that familiar route down I-35 and into Fort Worth. I got to hug the necks of my sister, brother-in-law and sweet 1-year-old niece for the first time in 7 weeks. I walked into my former room that I had left so tidy and neat (but really, it was pretty clean) and it was like walking into the room of a stranger. My distant memories of the month I had spent in Fort Worth in June felt like a whole different life and a whole different me living it, especially after spending so long in a country that it’s safe to say is the exact opposite of the one I had left behind.

Don’t get me wrong – I was so ecstatic to be back. I can’t say I held the same level of excitement for starting the craziness that is my last semester of nursing school, but it was so comforting to be surrounded again by family and friends and English speakers and healthy food. After my first summer trip to Tanzania last year, I knew to expect reverse culture shock. Ironically, it was coming home last year that was much harder than adjusting to the new environment when I first got there. With 3 extra weeks tacked on to my trip this summer, I had a feeling that my reverse culture shock adjustment might take a little more time. What I didn’t expect was how difficult that adjustment would actually be. As much as I tried to warn myself beforehand, nothing was enough to really prepare me for the challenging process that was ‘coming home’.

Now that I look back on it, I’m not sure what part of my brain thought it would be easy to get over every contrasting part of Tanzanian culture and every heartbreaking moment I witnessed. To my surprise, people on the street no longer greeted me with a friendly ‘mambo’ or tried to sell me their homemade paintings. It was no longer considered normal to struggle with scarce resources each day in Casualty or watch 2 stillborn births in one morning. I no longer had 30 other healthcare students to come home to and remind me that regardless of how awful that day may have been, there is still so much to be thankful for. Zooming trucks, weaving piki-piki’s and overflowing dala-dalas crowding the streets were replaced with smooth pavement, bright white and yellow lines and perfectly paced fancy cars that actually follow traffic regulations. The refreshing walk back from the hospital each day was replaced with a much quicker transport on four wheels. Order took the place of chaos. Excess took the place of scarcity. Routine took the place of spontaneous adventure.

One of the hardest parts of the transition was trying to fit back into the circles of society that I grew up in and now live in, riddled with idols of entitlement and success and fortune, full of people who have no idea how good they have it. My hand is the first one raised to admit that I took complete advantage of the country and environment that God gave me to grow up in before He exposed me to what a much less privileged part of the world looks like. I know that the U.S. has its own handful of disadvantaged people groups, but it was hard to see the importance of arguing over our “awful” healthcare system after working in a Tanzanian hospital whose meager attempt at adequate patient care was considered ‘incredible’ by the locals because that is the best they have. I had to hold my tongue when I heard people complaining about their lack of “cute clothes” and need for a back-to-school shopping spree, and all I could think about was the kids at Neema House that only had a couple of outfits to choose from and the hospital patients that barely had enough money to buy food for their families, much less an extra pair of pants. My heart twisted with pain and unrest as I watched these blessings get taken for granted so easily. But what was even more difficult to come to terms with was how easily I slid back into that same routine.

I walked so easily back into a world of comfort and safety and didn’t even think about taking a few minutes to thank God that I didn’t have to worry about the threat of bombings and terrorism anymore. I spent my first week back in the States enjoying the luxury of my queen-size bed, sleeping in until whatever time I pleased, and taking advantage of the freedom that was given to me on a silver platter. A distance of 8,836 miles had somehow caused me to forget about the culture I had just lived in for 5 weeks, where rest was rare and true freedom was unheard of.

It took me a long time to realize why I still didn’t quite feel like myself, even after I had been back for 3 weeks. I didn’t immediately recognize the source of the bitterness and discontent that haunted me. And then the stress of clinical orientations and last-semester-of-nursing-school busyness and looming job applications and the pressure to make decisions about the future came rushing in, and my discontent only seemed to grow. After week 4, I was a bit worried that this feeling was never going to go away.

To be very honest, that feeling still lingers in the back of my mind every day, and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. It’s difficult to not have a different perspective after seeing a level of suffering, injustice and persecution that isn’t as tangibly obvious in our developed country. But it’s even more difficult to live in the midst of those things for 5 weeks and never really be able to forget them. Part of the process of growing in relationship with God is seeing and understanding the weight of brokenness and sin that covers every inch of this world. He opened my eyes to that in Tanzania, and after seeing and experiencing some of the worst situations I’ve ever had to go through, it was hard to not carry that weight of brokenness and despair with me when I got back home.

But that’s not the end of the story. It can’t be, because if I let my thinking stop there this world would be a pretty sad place. If I linger on that truth for too long, I am missing the best part of the story. There’s a reason we’re called to recognize the brokenness that fills each of us, and it’s not so that we can live the rest of our lives under a burden of guilt and shame. The more I see and understand how utterly broken I am, the more frequently I am led to the foot of the cross to worship in the sweetness of God’s grace. The more I am faced with my own shortcomings and failures, the more I realize that I cannot do anything apart from Christ. Navigating the dark corners of Arusha this summer showed me this in the most tangible way that the Lord has ever used to teach me. The days that I forgot to rest in God’s sovereignty or tried to handle things on my own were the days when the burden of death and sin and brokenness were so incredibly overwhelming. When I buried the difficult emotions that arose after watching a mother grieve over her dead infant, I carried that around with me for weeks and let it bleed into other parts of my life. My confusion and anger pulled me away from the Lord. But when I sat in the back of the van on our way back from the hot springs and surrendered every emotion that was consuming me to the Lord after we watched a man face death and somehow survive, I was filled with an indescribable peace that the world would consider impossible in such a short time after witnessing a trauma. It was something I could only get from Jesus.

The world would tell me that it’s not fair for a perfectly capable mother to lose her child, and maybe if she had access to better prenatal care or had given birth in the U.S. this never would’ve happened. JESUS tells me that unexplainable loss like this is a result of the brokenness that entered this world the second Eve bit into that apple. It will never have a justifiable answer and it is impossible to completely fix the problem until the day He returns to bring complete redemption to His Creation. The world would tell me that a near drowning is something that no one should ever have to witness and what a blessing that we were there to help that poor man. JESUS tells me that He is sovereign and He put us in that specific place at that specific time for a very good reason. He reminds me that despite using us to save a man’s life, it was none of our own efforts and ALL of His saving grace that pulled the man out of the water that day. An inescapable part of following Christ is sharing in His suffering and coming face-to-face with the brokenness that leaves us hopeless if we’re not clinging to Him.

So instead of focusing too much on the situations I faced in Tanzania that can’t be easily fixed and don’t have a good answer, I get to focus on the relieving Truth that the Lord’s sovereignty reaches even the darkest corners of this Earth. Instead of allowing the impossible weight of hopelessness and despair to overwhelm me, I get to rejoice because Christ promises that one day He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death will be no more, neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, because these former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

Despite the trials and challenges that I was faced with in Arusha, I am so thankful for every moment that God gave me there and the soft spot He has grown in me for their people and culture. Each heartbreaking experience He brought me through continually reminded me that there is nothing I can do to solve the world’s problems, but thanks to Jesus I don’t have to. I’ll leave y’all with one of my favorite quotes that captures a Truth that I can never get enough of.

“Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak.

Because Jesus won for me, I am free to lose.

Because Jesus is someone, I am free to be no one.

Because Jesus was extraordinary, I am free to be ordinary.

Because Jesus succeeded for me, I am free to fail.”

– Tullian Tchividjian, Jesus + Nothing = Everything

Thank y’all so much for following my journey to Tanzania and back this summer. Your prayers, support and kind words meant the world to me along the way and I couldn’t have made it through this experience without y’all. I hope my shared stories over the last few months gave you a picture of my life in Arusha, my favorite adventures & the immense presence of the Lord through it all. If there’s one thing I learned consistently this summer, it’s that HE is good all the time. Praise the LORD that we get to rejoice in that Truth.

Love,

Allie

P.s. SURPRISE announcement – I went back and forth all summer on whether or not I wanted to keep writing after I got home. If you can’t tell, I kind of enjoy it (sorry again for the length of my posts) and the Lord has taught me so much through the process of writing blog posts and trying to communicate my thoughts. So, get excited, I’m planning on continuing to post blogs whenever I can for as long as I feel like it. I can’t say it’ll be predictable, but hopefully it’ll be fun 🙂