For our return home. . .

In 1992, I got to go back to my homeland Indonesia. There was a mission trip back to Indonesia that CBIM was doing. It was a developmental project and we would be working with Indonesian students on the Island of Kalimantan. At first it was just offered to Gil. They were looking for one more male to round out the group. I wanted him to go because at this point we were engaged and I thought he should experience Indonesia so that he would understand me and be able to get a grasp on what my growing up life had been like. When he went in to talk to Blair, Blair thought it would be good if I came too and we experience this trip together. So we raised some money and he made room to add one more person and I got to go home with Gil. Our trip started with a few days of training and then we went to Kalimantan. We spent 7 weeks there building dormitories for kids who had to leave home to be able to attend school, and digging wells. Then the last two weeks my sister, friend from childhood, Gil and I got to return to Sulawesi, reconnect with the people we hadn't seen in over ten years, and for Gil to see where I grew up. The first part of the trip was an eye opener for me. When we got off the plain my skin suddenly felt moist with the humidity and it was so thick that stepping off the plane the air actually catches in your throat. The other team members immediately felt warm and perhaps oppressed with it. I'm sure they were wondering if they would be able to get through the next seven weeks, but for me, it was warmth and familiar and my heart began to beat faster. I suddenly began to feel more alive than I had felt in a long time, my mind, my emotions, my heart suddenly started to whisper we're home, this is our land, this is our land. The next weeks for me was awash in discovery. I was discovering a part of myself I had forgotten. As the language slowly came back to me, as I ate foods I hadn't tasted for over ten years, as I experienced a people that have a grace that I have not found elsewhere, she returned to me. It was memory, being comfortable in my skin, feeling at peace, alive and content. For Gil the experience was far less poetic. It was an exercise in survival. He dropped 20 pounds, he sweat 24 hours a day and never did seem to find relief from the heat. He tried to keep up with understanding what was happening around him but the language barrier made that difficult. He coped as best as he could but Indonesia was not a paradise for him. Though he would tell me later how much he enjoyed seeing me in a light he had never seen, to see me comfortable and content he said was a gift to him. When we went back to my Islands it was more somber, to see how things had changed and yet how things are the same, it was heartbreaking as well as beautiful. It was here that I learned that Gil would never be able to move here and live her and I needed to make peace with that. It was also here that I said a final goodbye to my homeland. I still want to visit but the dream of returning to live died that year. However I feel blessed that I was able to show Gil that side of me, that I was able to enjoy those nine weeks, that I was able to learn who I really was, and to appreciate my history. I feel blessed that I was able to say good-bye and move forward with Gil without that wondering lingering in the back of my brain. I was able to make peace and that was an enormous gift.