When Home Isn't Where the Heart Is..

I left Cambodia a little less than two months ago, but I'm pretty sure my heart got wrapped up and thrown into the sunset over the rice fields or on the dusty streets in which I would ride my bike everyday.

Is the grass greener on the other side? I'll never really know.  The last four years I've spent my time in numerous places with numerous people falling into routine wherever God places me. I've had no choice but to adapt in the streets of Mexico City with prostitutes in daylight from squattie potties trying to communicate to recovering addicts in a Chinese house church in the middle of Shanghai somewhere.

I've wept over the brokenness of injustice in nations all over the world and now find myself in a small country town in Washington a little out of place.

My home isn't here, but is instead where I've spent the last four years pouring my heart out.


And now for rest. Rest is good they say. Time off is necessary for long term sustainment, this I know. But it sure doesn't feel good sometimes.


With the violence in Iraq, disease in Africa, I wake up in the morning and feel so helpless in my one bedroom apartment. There's a yearning in me that wants to be out there, and yet I know that God has called for me in this season to stay right here.


It'll get easier, this I know. This will become home, they say. Just give it time. Days won't be as lonely and there will be new opportunities I know.

But my heart, it's still so far away. It's in that yellow house in Cambodia, it's in the middle of day when I'm complaining about humidity, it's at Jaan bai with my favorite baristas, it's when I see the innocence of ignorance and bliss. It's at cafe Eden with all my friends from all around the world, dwelling on how life brought us together. It's in the quirks, the complaints, and in all the incredible people I feel like I've left behind.

So no, home isn't quite where the heart is yet, but everything in it's time they say, I hope they are right.

mourning, in all it's disguises.

grief, mourning, all come from the loss of a "good" thing. We don't often mourn a negative cancer scan, a first birthday, or a wedding between two friends...most of the time.

we mourn the loss of good things. good things that we love, that once brought us joy, the things that remind us that life indeed in every moment is worth living.


my last real season of mourning was losing Tyler in 2009 when tragic, unexpected, unforgiving death swept over my first year in college. I mourned late night talks on the swings, dreams of future travel, butterfly kisses and that blue-eyed boys' smile that left me never the same again that fateful phone call.


And so I loved, lost, and was determined to love again just so I could, but this time in new ways.
So I ventured off to new things, determined to find what I loved, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be and regain all that I lost, or all that I realized I never found under the blue California sky.


And now I am mourning differently, still the loss of a good thing. The loss of an idea of the way life goes, the gain of excitement when realizing God brings unexpected treasures into our life for our own benefit, while at the same time taking them away.

I absolutely love this nation, and I've learned of my deep love for people, wherever I go in my life. I am so challenged by today's culture that separates christianity from all other "secular" things. I am learning everyday what it is to " be in the world, but not of the world". Brokenness surrounds me. I cannot sit at a cafe at night without seeing "the least of these". Whether that be in the form of a mother and her child begging, or a 50 year old white man with a 12 year old Cambodian prostitute, likely working under a pimp.

My heart is always mourning. And I am thankful for that, the loss of a good thing comes with the gain of a better thing. I am grieved at the injustice of this nation, just as I am grieved at the apathy in my heart that will arise as I set in foot in America, I know because I am human. I know because my heart grows hard, I know because I am not perfect and there will be times I am selfish as opposed to generous. I know because there will be times when I miss this country, and these people and there will be times I am grateful I can feel safe on the roads again.

So I just let myself mourn. I let myself know that the price of loving people also comes with the payment of letting them go at some point in your life. The more I travel, experience new places and new things, I leave with the souvenirs of being able to grow and love incredible, different types of people. Some which love me back, some which don't know my name, some I saw once, some everyday. The people in which I am grateful that show me the world is so much bigger than what I ever thought. And that the people I love i this life life can give so much more than I could ever take. 

When there is good in the goodbye....

It has been way too long since I have written  here, and I feel like every time I write I start this with the same thing...I need to write more!

The last 8 months have been incredible. One of my lifelong dreams had been fulfilled, coming to live in Cambodia for a season. I came seeking a transformation of  my mind within my worldview, my purpose in life, and knocked on many other doors along the way. Some doors opened, some doors shut, and others sat in the middle with a weird wind reaction that could swing it either way.

I came with open hands, and open mind, and an open heart. A heart that longed for transformation to come to this nation, to the Cambodian people and for God to make himself known, while letting me play a small insignificant role in the vast plan of redemption.

I am saying goodbye to a lot as I close this chapter, and am grieving the loss of many dreams I thought were to unfold here. Funny how that happens, you set yourself out on a journey in life and before you know it...the steering wheel redirects your path as quick as you got on the road.

I guess that is one thing I’ve learned to cope with in the last 3 years of travels, ever since I bought a one way ticket to NY not knowing what was on the other side. The good in every goodbye. Different seasons of life bring different challenges, yet they bring different joys. They bring new beginnings with new friends, while bringing goodbyes that often hurt.

I am not sure where this next season will take me, but I do know that this season didn’t lead me to where I thought I wanted to go. And that is a good thing, even in the midst of goodbye. I thought the moment I stepped foot on this soil, I would never want to leave. I thought that God had a long term plan for me to give life to the women at risk in this community. I thought that I would physically give my life to this nation. It has been an episode of grieving really, grieving a lot of plans that came from my heart and didn’t end up the way I planned it.

But If I never would had those plans, I never would have ended up where I am today. I am 3 weeks away from finishing the most intense, inductive Bible course that exists today in Universities around the world. I’ve given 50-60 hour study weeks building the biblical foundation that makes my faith. It is hard for me to believe as a professing Christian before, I had no idea why I believed what I believed, and why I lived the way that I lived. The academic aspect of the faith through the study of the word these last 8 months of living in Cambodia has transformed my entire worldview, and has given me a rebirth in my life as a Christian.

I don't believe it because I was taught it, I don't do it because it feels right. I don't make serve and love other people because it makes me feel good about myself. I am who I am and know what I believe now because I have taken the time to wrestle through those doubts, wrestle through those emotional experiences, wrestle through my life in the past , and wrestle through the hard questions today.

I by no means have arrived, I by no means know it all. But I know more now than I have ever known before, and cannot believe how long I went without understanding the basics of my belief.

Here are my rambles, here are my findings, here is the good in goodbye. I might not stay in Cambodia forever, but I am taking everything I have learned here, and will apply it the  moment I step on American soil. I know that I must be obedient to what God has asked me to do, in whatever season of life he may have me in.