Finding Home

“Fi, you HAVE to buy it, if you don’t I will not be friends with you…” At the end of our first week in country, Fi and I went on the first of many local adventures in Dhaka. We picked up some tailoring, got some local snacks and went shopping. The early rainy season made the weather unusually cool, a contrast to the “walking in butter” sensation that happened often last year. We stopped in one shop and Fi found an awesome shalwar khameez that was in a plaid pattern that was red, green and yellow, both the kind of outfit I could easily see Fi wear, and one that would bring delight to all who saw her in it, hence my strong admonishment to buy it. Reflecting on this day and our adventure, I realized I knew Fi a lot better than I did on last year’s GUP, and I had a strong sense of peace about being in and engaging in Dhaka; the fear that constantly gripped me last year was gone, I had a better sense of what to expect and could better anticipate situations. When we walked back to Grace House and told the students of our successful adventure, joy abounded in my heart, and I knew, I was home.

When we lead students on GUPs, we teach them about 4 stages of culture shock they will encounter as they adjust to a foreign culture: Honeymoon, Hostility, Humour, and Home. Honeymoon is the first, and occurs in the first few days or week in country, where everything is novel and new and there is a surface level love of all people and situations. As in life, the honeymoon ends and the next stage begins, which is hostility. In the hostility stage, there is recognition of experiencing culture shock, often people feel angry, frustrated, saddened, confused and a plethora of other emotions as they encounter things that once brought them so much joy. The length of this stage varies, some people spend a long time here, while others move into the next stage quickly. The next stage is humour, where things that once would bring up feelings of hostility are actually humourous. This is a difficult stage to gauge, as sometimes people rush to get here and try to find humour in situations that ends up being condemning or criticizing of the host culture (which would indicate one was still firmly in the hostility stage). The true humour stage is when there isn’t a mean spirit within the humour, and more a spirit of acceptance and joy. The last stage is home, where you feel as though the host culture is home. You’re able to see the good and the bad, and with right perspective know how to adapt appropriately to the situations at hand. The thing to note is that often people don’t always move through these stages in a linear way, and may jump back and forth through the stages as different situations arise.

Last year in Bangladesh, I loved the experience I had with the Canadian team. But I personally had a really hard time in Bangladesh. My expectations of how I would be received and perceived were far from the reality of my experience. I spent a few days in the honeymoon stage, and a few weeks in hostility stage, and only toward the end of the trip did I enter into the humour stage. But, I very much left the country never reaching the home stage. I walked away from the GUP last year thinking I would never step foot in the country again, and made efforts to be at peace with my experience. I never would have thought I would go back the following year, let alone direct the next year (more on that story later). I decided to go back once I realized how much this GUP influenced and pushed my students into new places of growth and discipleship, and also with the hope that God wouldn’t leave me unsettled with my experience in Bangladesh and would offer healing and redemption. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.