familiar

I traveled six hours today and ended up in another world.

About 300 km from our city is a town with a major tourist attraction. It is built up to make foreigners feel comfortable, and boy, does it feel good sometimes to come and get pampered. The hotels are gorgeous and the myriad of restaurants offer all sorts of familiar western foods.

But that isn't the only reason this place feels familiar. For about three years we traveled to this town twice a month for our work. We know our way around, we have our favorite "haunts", we feel a sense of belonging here.

Unfortunately, since it is such a tourist town, no one else recognizes us as the "old timers" we are. Everyone assumes we're like 98% of the other westerners here: tourists. And so even though we feel very comfortable here, we are treated as strangers.

I think this is symptomatic of our whole time in this country. Coming from the States, this has been a little hard to understand, because in the US you can be from almost any ethnicity or race, and still be an "American". But this country is very homogenous. Everyone looks the same, speaks the same language, shares a common history. It doesn't matter how comfortable or adapted we become, we will always be outsiders.

I started a new yoga routine this week, and the instructor says at one point, "I want you to get comfortable with being uncomfortable!" Well, I think that's the problem. After 12 years my heart and mind feel relatively at ease here, but I can never rest easy because every day I am reminded that I don't fit. It's very uncomfortable, and I have never become comfortable with that discomfort.

I see, by the way, parallels here for a transformed Christian living in an unregenerated world, but I don't have it all worked out yet. Plus, I have a 5 AM wake-up call planned tomorrow morning so that I can get out and get started photographing bright and early.

I can't wait!