To Love a Home is to Love the People Living There

It really is a wonder to come back to a dearly loved place and realize that life as you knew it has moved on without you that while you were changing in some beautiful mountainous region that people continued living and not just living but living without you. I have never been the type to be very homesick but arriving in the states and leaving the four people that I bonded with the most during the semester has made me aware that coming back to a place that you have left for a while is much harder than to assimilate into somewhere new. As I was walking into my dorm Hospers, I said goodbye to Kelly and Marit. It wasn’t until I was greeted downstairs by my group of friends here at school that I realized how desperately I missed my Romania people. Now it wasn’t that I was unhappy to see my friends it is just that I know Kelly, Marit, Tad, Zach and the rest of the gang in Romania much better at this moment then the lovely people who greeted me in the lobby. I wanted to stay with the other four for they were what I knew all semester and we at least had an understanding of what we had done and how we had grown. I feel right now as if I don’t have the energy to explain the time I was gone…that I won’t do the semester justice if I try to explain it to those who have not had the same experience. I have never had such an intense reaction to being back in a place but then again I have never come back from such a long period of being gone. Granted three and half months didn’t seem to be that long, but people have been changed by two week trips in the mountains and we had a much longer time away. Three and a half months I chose to be present in Romania and now that I am back I must choose to be present in America, in school in Iowa, and with my family during Christmas break. I am dreading what comes with that choice as I know that I cannot say something and do something else. And sadly it means that thinking about people and mountains in Romania and idealizing Lupeni in the Jiu valley as the best place to be right now is not an option. I do think that without my faith and stronghold that I would not have been capable of going to Romania, much less coming back. And though I know that it may be a near impossible feat to become fully present in America it is the only way that I can become fully here. To all the study abroad students and everyone else who is having a tough time finishing out the semester strong and anyone else who needs a little bit of encouragement, remember that God is a rock who is ever constant and is a firm foundation and if you focus on him he will get you through your tough times. A verse in Psalms emphasizes this point quite well as it is in the context of David praising God for getting him through a tough battle and has been an encouragement to me throughout the semester when I doubt that I am going to be able to overcome my battles. In Psalm 18:1-3 it says, “I love you O lord, my strength. You are my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, God you are my rock in whom I take refuge, You are my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. You are worthy of my praise, I call out and you have saved me from my enemies.