Re-entry

It happens every time. You leave, you come back, and you're never the same. I know this as I go, but until the change is staring you in the face you just can't fully grasp its reality.
The night I sat in an internet cafe in Bangkok writing my last post seems such a distant memory. Did I really travel around Southeast Asia for over a month? Did I really hold beautiful newborns in the slums of Cambodia? Did I really hang out in strip clubs in the Red Light District with a well known anti-human trafficking organization? It seems so bizarre to say that I did. And it was only a month or so ago.
I was anticipating coming home to the good ol' USA like a child awaiting summer vacation on the last day of school. I knew that, once back, I would fall back into routine. I would forget about those girls that were trapped. I'd forget about the horrid poverty. I'd forget. And I wanted to. I was tired. My mind was tired. I wanted to be uninformed. Ignorance is bliss, so they say.
Our DTS had one final week once back here in NY. We caught up with the other team upon their arrival and tried to share our experiences. But no words, no slideshow of photos can truly portray those moments and do them justice. We all tried to pretend that our time wasn't coming to a fleeting end, that our 6 month bubble wasn't about to be popped. We graduated our students with pride on March 10th and by the 11th we'd said most of our goodbyes. My mind knew that this was what they were made for, to go back to their homes and change the world, but my heart was in a state of utter confusion. Why was my family leaving? It's the hardest part about this lifestyle. 6 months in YWAM equals at least a few years in "real time", I'm convinced. This, this I didn't want to forget. I wanted every last memory with those that I had loved in a way I never had before.
Time dragged on, and then just got on with itself as it normally does. It's been just 1 month and 1 week since that whirlwind period of my life ended, but it seems as if it's been an eternity. I go to work 9-5 like a normal person. I cook for 1, instead of 50, like a normal person. I have coffee with friends, I read quietly in the back yard, the list goes on. Drastic change in such a short time is nothing short of dramatic, and sometimes even traumatic. They say time heals all things, but really I think it just numbs it and covers it up.
Our minds are quite nice in that they completely allow us to take a hiatus from reality. But all hiatuses must, they need, to come to an end. The feeling of helplessness as you watch a 15 year old dance her life away seeps back into your thoughts and you realize you haven't been the same since you witnessed it with your own eyes. Your mind has been in some abyss, but your heart and your being hasn't. You have forever been altered. Thank God. It's in those moments that people become better. Just plain better.
So now as I live my post-DTS life, I grapple with this new knowledge, this change in my person. But even more, I grapple with knowing that I'll repeat this process in 5 short months. I fully know that God calls us to things so big that if it weren't for Him, we'd fall short. It's in those calls that we can take no credit and He gets all the glory. This has undoubtedly been one of those times. I'll keep dreaming big, because the change that comes from it compares to no other.

DTS 2011-2012 Graduating Class + Staff