Vignettes and Verity

Oh, that's sad, look at the homeless person sleeping on the shop's stoop, I pointed out to my husband as we walked past. A large lump lay on their side, covered in a thick blanket and facing away from us. We couldn't tell if they were a man or woman but we suddenly realized what the homeless person was doing. They were busily scrolling through their phone, watching Instagram reels. 

A couple of days later, we passed the neighborhood beggar man. He was young, probably in his late 20's, and he always dragged a giant dirty white tarp basket behind him to collect recyclables. He stood on the sidewalk, asking everyone who walked by to buy him something to eat. As we passed by, I noticed the brand new Nike shoes. My husband saw the matching Nike jacket. Neither of us could afford to buy brand name clothes on the missionary stipend we were on. Believe me, he probably has a house somewhere, my husband muttered. 

We slid into the metro just before the doors closed. My husband nodded towards an empty seat, I didn't want to sit, and by the time we had finished arguing about it (I thought he should sit because he had overstretched his leg doing weights at the gym the day before), a young woman had sat down instead. When we reached the first stop, another seat opened up and my husband hurried towards that one. I followed him and stood in front of him, holding on to the overhead strap to keep from stumbling when the metro came to a complete stop. The metro drivers tended to do a little jerk at the end to line up with the exit markers. We had two more stops to go. The metro started up again, and soon another seat opened up but I didn't notice it because I was chatting to my husband. A man sitting next to him caught my eye and ever so subtly nodded in the direction of the open seat. I turned and made my way to it. It was not often a stranger looked out for us in the bustle of the city we lived in.

Friday bazaar. The bane of my existence while simultaneously offering wonderfully fresh fruits and vegetables and treasures galore. We'd bought the last block of white cheese, my husband had carefully picked out 10 giant twin-egg-yolk eggs for frying and 10 slightly smaller eggs for boiling, and I'd snagged a good-sized stalk of broccoli for $1. Our last stop was to pick up some fruit. I carefully picked over the remaining Fuji apples and chose 5, putting them into a pink plastic bag. The vendor slung the plastic bag on his scales and, quick as a wink, grabbed 3 random apples, threw them in, and started to reach for a yellow one that looked quite bruised. I started to protest, my husband told the man we didn't want that one, so he told us it was 1 kg (though I was sure it was only .8 but by that point I had no more energy to argue). I left paying for 3 extra apples that I didn't want and vowing never to buy anything in the Friday market again. Or at least not from that vendor. I hate Friday bazaar, I texted my family in the group chat. 

I think I'm finally reaching the point where I'm realizing that I do not have to change who I am at my core to fit in or please anyone, regardless of which culture I live in. Of course there are moral rules and there are certain cultural rules that are valued as highly as moral rules which I will abide by. For example, I would never intentionally steal something (though I did walk out of a Walmart with a floss once, and realized when I reached the car and pulled it out of my purse that I hadn't paid for it! I mailed it back, along with a $1 bill to make double amends but I left my return address off out of fear I would get nabbed for petty theft!). I would not cross my legs and intentionally show the sole of my foot to someone from the Middle East because that is considered like cursing them. The first is a moral rule; the latter a cultural one. 

However, I've spent my entire life adapting, acclimating, and chameoleonizing to the point that I've lost who I am. Or maybe I never had the chance to figure out who I was. I'm not really sure. But what I am sure of is that I will blow my nose when I am in public, even if it is considered rude in Istanbul. I will eat by myself if I am hungry and I won't force my husband to eat something if he doesn't want to, even though in his culture people always eat together and it's considered polite to eat whatever you are offered even if you don't like it. I will decide when I will do ministry and how and I won't always be available for every single thing. I will find my own job and I will take joy in what I do, instead of feeling guilted into doing certain jobs because it will enhance someone else's ministry opportunities. I will stand firmly and silently on principle. I will make my life as easy as possible, instead of always accommodating everyone else. If I cannot do something, I won't do it. I will say no more often. I will prioritize my physical health so I can stabilize my emotional health. I will drink water when I go out and not apologize for needing to use the bathroom, even though the people I am with don't need to use it and are impatient to go to the next destination. I will create quiet spaces in my world where I can rejuvenate, whether it is reading my Bible or knitting or going for a long walk or having a cup of coffee. I will stop trying to subsume myself and disappear into invisibility. I will learn to find my voice and speak up firmly and say, No more apples. I only want 5 apples. Sadece bu, fazla istemiyor ve ödemeyeceğim. 

For What Was

I shook as I leaned against the tiled wall in the public toilet stall, thankful for the floor-to-ceiling door that muffled the whispered sobs I could no longer hold back. Control yourself, I silently repeated over and over, trying to gather myself so I could go outside and finish my meal. It made no difference; no matter what I said or thought, the sobs kept coming from a dark place so deep, I couldn't see the bottom of it. 

A few minutes earlier, I had been sitting with my husband at a gray plastic table-for-two, waiting patiently for our fast-food orders to be ready. I'd decided on biscuits, coleslaw, and cashew fries from Popeye's and he'd ordered a chicken sandwich wrap from a counter a couple places down. My fries came out and sat on a tray alongside a small tub of coleslaw, my husband picked up his sandwich, but the biscuits still were not ready. If there was one thing I hated, it was cold fries, and the longer I had to wait for the biscuits, the colder the fries were going to get. 

Do you want me to bring the fries here? my husband asked. I nodded. He went to the counter and returned with the fries and coleslaw on a tray. I smiled and reached for the first fry. It was stone cold. 

I'm going back to the counter, the fries are cold, I said. I picked up the bucket and headed back. The young cashier turned from filling another order and looked at me inquiringly.

Bu soguk [It's cold], I said in my limited Turkish. 

He took the bucket, turned around, and I watched in amazement as he dumped the fries back in with the rest of the others, stirred them around for three and a half seconds, and scooped up a fresh (albeit my original mixed in with the new) order of fries. I put my hands around the bottom of the bucket. It was still cold. 

My mind went blank and I forgot the word for, "it's not" and kept repeating bu soguk. He put his hand in the metal pan where the fries were, shrugged his shoulders and rattled off some words as if to say that this was as hot as it would get, then looked at me dismissively. I had run out of Turkish vocabulary. All I could do was grab my bucket and walk off. 

After sitting down, I tried to start eating but the tears that had began that morning were pushing violently against my vocal chords and eyelids, insisting to be let out. I was afraid I would burst into tears in the middle of the food plaza, so I hurriedly excused myself, mumbling something about needing to go to the bathroom, and rushed off to find the nearest stall. Thankfully it was close by. 

You need to learn to regulate your emotions, I told myself after I had blown my nose and wiped my eyes. I know, but I couldn't. I don't know why I couldn't stop crying. 

Usually I knew. I would dig my fingernail deep into the soft part of my thumb until the pain overtook the urge to sob and, after a few moments, I could normalize my emotions long enough until I was home and could retreat to the bedroom or my office to let the feelings out. But this time? 

Maybe it was an accumulation of things. The night before, my husband had finished a 6-month translation project that had kept him up late nights. Now a book was ready to share with a people group who had limited access to practical knowledge of God from a Christian perspective. If all went well, we would even be able to make it available on an app that would make it accessible worldwide. Several friends were translating it into another language for a second people group my husband also worked with. That group had even less materials available in their language, other than the Bible.

A donor had sent some funds for translating work and we had calculated a very reasonable price per word to pay my husband. The rest of the funds would go towards the second translation. We had sent an email to our calling organization asking for payment from that fund, but the treasurer hadn't replied. 

All the verses about not trusting in gold and silver, laying up treasure in heaven, and how God will provide for all our needs flooded my mind but at the same time anxiety worked my stomach into thick knots tighter than the beanie I was knitting for my husband. I didn't do well with not knowing, not hearing. Both of us had sacrificed free time so he could finish this translation project and what if they said they wouldn't pay him? 

Or maybe it was the frustration of not being able to communicate in yet another country, even though I did try. I listened very hard and did my best to stumble out a few words but the moment someone recognized that I was not a local, they switched off and turned away, too busy to give me a chance to try to say what I needed. My husband ended up becoming my translator, code-switching all day long between his two mother tongues, English (our common language), and Turkish. I didn't know how he handled it. I had lived more than a third of my life in countries where I could not speak the language and I was oh so very tired of it. 

Perhaps it was the challenge of not being able to find and cook favourite foods that I missed so much. When I went to visit my mom, I cooked tofu scramble for days and tired her out with the garlic baby bok choy, Grillo's dill pickles, seaweed, and salsa with tortilla chips I lived on. Every time she asked me what I wanted her to stock up on before I came and I would invariably answer, Chips and salsa. Oh, and baked beans. I need baked beans. Do you have toast and Vegenaise?

I'd been spoiled, living those 17 years in California, the land of vegan delights. A slice of toast with Vegenaise smothered in Bush's Baked Beans was a must-have. Haystacks, stir-fries, vegan burgers, all were foods I could only dream of in Istanbul. Even the foreign supermarkets didn't stock veggie meats and their beans were outrageously priced. Every now and then I splurged on a Twix or a Snickers bar, just to feel like I was home. 

Home

It was a word that came unbidden but always hovered invisibly above me, questioning, floating, unsure and insecure. Every now and then I managed to pin it to a person, a place, a feeling, a sensory memory. I gave a presentation, I was published in a TCK magazine, I wrote a poem, a blog post. Yet, no matter how creative I tried to be, home still remained as elusive as grasping one's breath in cold weather. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, I longed to be here. But not always. 

Sometimes I was there and I didn't want to come back here. There, in California, I could breathe again without my lungs rattling at night. I didn't have to gather up my three pillows and head to the living room where I would prop myself up with a couple of extra sofa cushions behind the pillows in an attempt to sit up straight and breathe a bit quieter. I didn't wake up sneezing violently every morning. My eyes didn't itch, my nose didn't itch, my throat didn't itch, my ears didn't itch. In California, I could earn minimum wage and still live a respectable life and afford to go out to eat and buy nice clothes. I could eat Indian food at my favourite buffet or enjoy a budget lunch special at $7.95 with a lovely peanut-sauce-dressing salad, green curry with Thai basil and eggplant, and fluffy jasmine rice. 

When I was here, I stepped out my front door and I was in a kaleidoscope of energy. A bakery tucked away in a poorer part of the city where you could buy fresh stone-baked flatbread, bald chubby babies laughing at us as we shared a table in the ferry, a skeleton of a building already going up where yesterday was an empty lot, fresh flowers or tiled sidewalks busily being put down by municipality workers in the town square, a women's handicraft exhibit or used book fair full of things to look at and buy, and countless side alleys that housed magical little shops of all kinds, pulled me into the dance of life and I didn't want to let go. I thrived on adventure, travel, and all that came along with it. I wasn't quite ready to give that up for the quiet country life my mother enjoyed. 

And so the conundrum continued. And perhaps I would never stop crying for what was, but was not me. 

Table 10

The folded airplane sat on my desk, my name in black calligraphy on one wing, the table I sat at on the other. Out of all the things I chose to lug across continents and oceans, this was one I planned to keep. A little reminder of a beautiful day with perfectly clear skies, a pair of broken shoes, and an unplugged wedding with guests from around the world. I smiled as I remembered my little brother's wedding. Except he wasn't so little anymore; now he was a captain flying for a regional airline, with his MBA, and married to my elegant sister-in-law.

To my right sat a pile of books that I was planning to flip through for a PowerPoint training on boundaries in ministry that I was developing. On top lay the book It's OK That You're Not OK by Megan Devine. The subtitle grabbed me, Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand. Maybe Megan could understand the sadness that never fully went away. Or expressed itself in odd ways, like eating whole bars of chocolate while working my remote job, or feeling some sort of perverse release when the glass lid slid off the countertop and shattered in a thousand pieces on the kitchen floor. 

Very few people understood grief that could not be neatly defined.  Even fewer felt comfortable to sit in the silence with someone who felt overwhelmed by the sadness. I had walked through the city of Istanbul, tears rolling down my cheeks, passing hundreds of strangers who didn't even give me a sideways glance, let alone ask what was wrong. When we were first married and my tears would well up without warning, my husband would ask why I was crying in the typical fix-it-logical-engineer mind that he had. I don't know was most often my answer. I understood the feeling but I could not explain it to someone who had not experienced the loss with me. 

My brother understood, even though he was just a little boy when our parents split up and we fled from the Middle East. When I simply couldn't hide my emotions anymore, he gave me a hug, handed me a tissue, and sat with me in the dark. My sister understood, as we tried to wade through rules, expectations, and yet another culture with its subculture's heavy religious undertones. She sat with me in the messy liminality without expectations of ever fully processing it all or finding the joy we once knew. When I felt overwhelmed by the heavy atmosphere, my mother understood and sat with me, giving me freedom to breathe, freedom to eat real cheesecake and wear tank tops in 100-degree summer. It was in our loss of the life we had known that we became close as a family—each of us grieving in our own way but drawing close to comfort the other.  

But there was something missing. I struggled to feel that God also understood me. All too often, He was my father's voice, condemning, why wasn't I better, why did I choose to do things He didn't approve of, why didn't I witness more/pray more/fast more? Sometimes I caught a glimpse of a compassionate God, but He was often obscured by the rules and regulations imposed on me by a high-control society. 

I glanced at the time and realized I had just a few minutes left before a scheduled Zoom call. A lady I had briefly met a couple of weeks prior had asked if we could pray together. Fix your face, you don't need to be crying in the call, I told myself. I blew my nose, wiped my eyes, and gave a half-hearted swipe at the wisps of hair just above my ear that refused to lie flat. Moments later, I was introducing myself to R and we began to talk.

How are you doing, really? R asked. The kind compassion in her voice opened the floodgates I had tried so hard to latch shut. I swallowed hard, looked away, and tried to answer without getting emotional, but I couldn't simply say a few platitudes and wrap it up with a neat, I'm blessed, thank you. I had never been good at lying, or even skirting a question, and somehow my heart sensed that here was someone who was safe and could be trusted with the lump of sadness that refused to dissolve. 

What I thought would be a 20, 30-minute max, call turned into over an hour. R asked me meaningful questions, listened patiently and interestedly, and gently reminded me that I was not only loved by God and precious in His sight but that I also had a whole family of brothers and sisters in Christ who were there to support and lift me up. As we prayed for each other, the tears returned, falling unchecked, as she entreated God with words I could not speak but felt deep in my heart. The call ended and I sat at my desk, alone once more, still crying, but this time the room was holy ground, the emptiness filled with God's presence, and the tears from a grateful heart. 

God, if You are anything like R, compassionate, kind, gentle and gracious, then I want to know You more. To be in heaven with You one day. 

When I was a teenager, I heard a speaker say that "God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning." I really struggled with that concept. I had gone through a lot of difficult things that I would never have chosen, let alone repeat if I could choose to live my life over. The hard, the wrong, the unjust, all came because of the impact of sin on the world we lived in. 

I wouldn't want to repeat the difficult times in my life if I had a choice, R told me, but I read a quote the other day that really spoke to me. It said, "I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." [Charles Spurgeon]

I couldn't pretend I understood why the tears fell, why the hard sometimes felt harder than usual, or why God sometimes hid behind a thick cloud of silence. But that morning, as a sister in Christ sat with me and empathized with my heart, I felt God's hand touch me in reassurance that I was not alone. My family, whether by blood or by the blood of Christ, was lifting me up, supporting me, praying for me, loving me, and in doing so, they pushed me up just that little bit higher so my hand could touch the outstretched Hands reaching down to me. Or maybe He had been holding my hand all along.  

A Hallowed Bathroom

E29. 

I stared at my washing machine as it blinked error code E29 at me. I blinked back, hoping somehow it would fix itself if I turned the knob to a different wash setting. No such luck. The code persisted. 

It had been a very long week and an even longer night. My allergies had flared up, even with allergy medicine, and I missed the 3 months of respite I had enjoyed in dry northern California. After doing a bit of research online, I figured out I must be allergic to dust and danger, which unfortunately was very difficult to eradicate, particularly in the humid air of Istanbul. I made a list of the preventive measures recommended to try to help reduce the level of dust mites in my apartment:

• Wash bedding and pillows in 60-degree water
• Vacuum and mop regularly
• Dust with a microfiber cloth (I used a wet wipe)
• Spray eucalyptus on sofas, mattresses, rugs (apparently it could kill dust mites)

I set about doing battle with the invisible mites. I vacuumed, mopped, and dusted, but realized I was probably fighting a losing battle as visible specks of dust appeared on the black living room side table just minutes after I had dusted it. Regardless, I told myself my house was clean and it should help my allergies. My nose, however, didn't seem to hear as it ran its own marathon. 

After a relaxing evening with friends over for a meal, I noticed a tightening of my chest, some wheezing, and of course, the invariably drippy nose. I didn't know if it was my immune system overreacting to all the cleaning I had done that day, the strawberries we enjoyed for dessert (I was sensitive to strawberries in the US but hadn't had the same reaction so far in Turkey), or anxiety. I drank a liter of water, took charcoal, did steaming with eucalyptus, and sat by the open window. I couldn't take another dose of Allerclear yet, so all I could do was wait. 

Around 2 am, I finally dozed off, sitting up as straight as I could on our two-person couch, propped up by four pillows. I woke up 3 hours later feeling like I could breathe a little easier but continued to sleep somewhat intermittently for the rest of the night and into the morning. 

I'm going to the library to study, my husband told me as he finished his fat breakfast sandwich and I wandered into the kitchen to get some water. I nodded, my mind already whirring with thoughts of the things I needed to get done that day. I had to prep my English class and finish onboarding for a remote temp job. As he packed his backpack, I stripped the quilt covers from our bed and chose several pillow cases along with a fitted sheet from my linen closet to rewash in 60-degree water. 

See you later, he said. I stood by the door, watching him disappear down the stairwell, then returned to the bathroom where I shoved the quilt covers into our 8-kg Grundig washing machine. As I was adding the laundry detergent, I heard a knock at the door. 

I'm coming, I called out, and hurried back down the hallway to unlock the door. 

I forgot my headphones, I hung them up on the wall, my husband stood patiently waiting at the door so he wouldn't have to take his shoes off to come in. I went to his study to retrieve them. 

They're not hanging up, I called out. 

Check the bed, he replied. 

I checked and sure enough they were there, thrown haphazardly under a corner of the sleeping bag he burrowed under in the winter's cold. I grabbed them and went back to our front door. 

Thank you! he grinned, as I watched him go down the stairs again. 

I checked the washing machine one more time and decided I would wash the pillow case covers with the fitted sheet in a second load as the quilt covers were rather bulky and there was limited space inside the drum. I closed the door and spun the knob from its off position to the right, expecting to see the digital display light up with water temperatures and timings. 

E29 appeared. 

I remembered I'd had a problem before with an error code but it was related to the door not registering as being closed. I'd usually just opened and reclosed it a couple of times which reset whatever sensor was inside. I couldn't remember what the error code was, but I figured it was the same one, so I opened and closed the door again. 

E29

I tried spinning the knob to different wash settings to see if that would trigger anything. 

E29

I opened and shut the washing machine's door several more times, each time hopefully spinning the knob to see if that would reset the sensor.

E29

Feeling rather helpless, I turned to my trusty Gemini app and typed in my washing machine's make, load capacity, and error code. It quickly spit out several solutions all related to an apparent water fill issue (which didn't make sense since I hadn't even started a cycle yet). The first fix was easy: check the water supply by turning on a tap in a nearby sink to make sure the water pressure isn't low. There was no problem there. The other three solutions were progressively more complicated, involving hoses, pipes, filters, capacitors, and pulling the bulky washing machine out from the snug cubby hole it sat in under my bathroom sink to unplug and replug it back in. 

If my handy engineer husband was still at home, he would have come immediately to fix it. The problem was that he had just left for a day of study at the library for a very important and difficult final exam. Having exhausted all my options, I decided to pray. 

Standing there, in front of my washing machine, hands clasped and eyes closed, I prayed out loud. 

Dear God, You know there is a problem with my washing machine. It's giving me this error code and I don't know how to fix it. My husband isn't home, we didn't get our salary yet so we don't have enough money to pay a technician to come out and fix it, and I really need to wash this bedding so I can hopefully sleep better tonight. I just can't handle one more thing to worry about right now. Can You please fix it?

I envisioned Jesus standing next to me, His left arm placed reassuringly around my shoulders. I kept my head bowed, acknowledging in my heart that God could very well not answer my prayer and I would just have to wait until my husband came home that evening to figure out what to do next. At the same time, I remembered the verse about the mustard seed and felt I had at least that much faith that God could fix my washing machine. 

I opened my eyes and reached for the knob. I hesitated, then decided to open and close the door one last time. I spun the knob and held my breath. 

The display lit up.

No more E29 codes; now I was looking at the usual water temperatures and timings I always saw when I turned on my washing machine. I stood there in shock. I couldn't even reach out and turn the knob to the setting I wanted to wash the bedding on. 

Thank you, God, I whispered reverently. 

In that moment when I prayed, God heard and answered me instantly. It was a silly little prayer, really, in the grand scheme of things. I didn't pray for world peace, for healing, or more money. I just came to Him in my weariness, unable to do any more, and asked Him to please help me. And He did.

A friend asked me yesterday, How do you know if God is speaking to you? It was the age-old question that people have tried to answer with various equations and formulas over the centuries. I had given my own—counsel from wise friends, prayer, sermons, the Holy Spirit's conviction. And yet it felt like there was something still missing. Today, I knew. It was the presence of God. For me, my hallowed ground was a black and white tiled bathroom with a peeling paint ceiling and a dysfunctional washing machine. It was there that I met my God.

Time Twitcher

I'm in another of those in-between stages of life. It feels like I've been in a holding pattern for the last 10 years, maybe more. The first adventure in Lebanon, not sure how long it would last, deciding it would be my last year, then meeting a boy and the rest, as they say, is history. Another four years, then it was off to Turkey. Finding an apartment, renewing my residence permit every six months, every week something new whether it was language classes or visiting another city or exploring an old palace. I came back to one of my many "homes" last month, expecting to be here about a month or so. That month has stretched into almost two and the end is not anywhere in sight yet. I miss my husband; I'm happy to be with my mom; I miss the convenience of fresh produce in the Friday market; I love being able to eat tofu every day if I want to. These juxtapositions of love in each world I circle through confuse me sometimes. Where am I supposed to feel most at home? Which place should I miss the most? The Netherlands? Turkey? Lebanon? California? And there are more, but those figure most prominently in my recent history. 

I get flashbacks often. Today it was a road in Beirut, one we didn't go down often. I can tell you exactly where the bridge was that we drove under, the vegetable mini markets on the right side of the road advertising fresh produce at unbeatable prices. We always flew by those, intent on another destination, usually City Centre mall (not to be confused with City Mall mall, which I always mixed up) but I thought, fleetingly, as we whizzed by, that we should have stopped and at least gotten a few things. 

The flashbacks come without warning and often without logic. It's not like I smell something familiar that transports me back to where I ate that food, ran in that grass, or played with that dog. It's almost as if my brain glitches, and, uncertain exactly where to place me today, it twitches in time and finds something that feels familiar and presents me with it. 

Then there's the anxiety. I start to count the days I've been here and worry about my husband being alone. Never mind he is in his 40's, lived on his own for nearly 20 years before we got married, and is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He can cook, clean, do his own laundry, and all much faster than I can. We can video chat, message each other at all hours of the day or night, and call for hours if we want to. The wonders of modern technology does much to assuage the anxious thoughts of "I wonder if he's eaten today? Is he warm enough? Is he home safely?" And yet, it also adds to it because the very vivid reminder that I have a husband waiting for me comes home with a stronger punch than usual when I see his grinning face through my 6-inch phone screen, as he sticks out his tongue and crosses his eyes to make me laugh.

I know I have a very real purpose in being here. I've seen God guide events down to the very day and hour. Take today, for example. I woke up, made my list of to-do's, texted a friend to make tentative plans for an afternoon walk today or tomorrow, depending on the fickle fall rain and cloudy skies, and started working on my accounts. An hour or so later, my mom and I had decided that the afternoon was indeed the best time to shop, what with the Thanksgiving rush coming up and all, and I had just enough time to throw a load of laundry in, tidy up the house, prepare the cooler box, returns, water bottles, and my bag for shopping. My afternoon was planned, I was excited, and we were going to eat out at my favourite Thai restaurant.

So even in the liminality of life, I am learning that it is okay to not know exactly where to place myself. There may be anxiety, uncertainty, and a feeling of saudade for "the other" when I am not there. But this is the life we live on this earth and I'm thankful that in the midst of it all, I have a safe warm place to live, I am fed, I have things to do, and I am loved. And maybe home is constantly moving, but maybe it simply moves with me, in flashbacks that remind me of who I was and anticipation of what is ahead.

Afferdersiniz

Çok ülkedeler yaşamak çok zor. Hangi hastane iyidir? Hangi dış hekimi sakin olacak? Dili konuşamıyorum ve anlayamıyorum.

I had carefully written down what I wanted to say in class for that day's homework assignment on "What makes you stressed?" I sat nervously waiting, at the desk in the far left back corner of the classroom. The teacher asked the first student, who answered about life in Istanbul, and each classmate after that riffed off that answer and talked about the difficulties of living in Turkey. 

Then it was my turn. 

I was last. I hated being last. I hated having to sit through each classmate's response, not knowing whether I would be called on next, understanding everything they were saying but not being able to bring cohesive words to my mouth when it was my turn to talk. 

The teacher looked at me expectantly. All the words I had written down blurred together, my mind went blank, and I felt unbidden tears well up behind my weary eyes. I looked down at my paper, tried to make sense of what I had so painstakingly translated, and dug the fingernail of my left index finger into the soft part of my left thumb. It was a trick I'd learned long ago to stop the tears from coming, at least for a while, as my mind refocused on the physical sensation and forgot about the emotional pain. Temporarily. 

A sentence came into focus and I spoke, clumsily maneuvering through the strange pronounciation. I skipped the first part and went straight to, "What is a good hospital? Who is a calm dentist? Immigration office is very difficult. I cannot speak or understand the language." 

My voice trembled. I stopped speaking and shrugged my shoulders. I knew if I continued, the fingernail trick would no longer work and the tears would rapidly appear. Even though my classmates mostly didn't notice me, sitting in my corner, the teacher was looking intently right at me, and she would know. I heard a note of compassion in her voice as she agreed that life in a new country was hard when you didn't know the language. Then she gave a few grammatical corrections and I bent my head over my workbook, writing in the corrections and swallowing hard, hoping the desperate need to cry would go away. 

I told myself I could cry later. 

Class flew by that morning as we learned new grammar and, by the time I was heading down the side street, headphones in, and hiking-boot-clad feet pointed towards home, I was surprised to notice I didn't feel so sad anymore. I didn't cry then and I didn't cry when I let myself in to the privacy of our cozy apartment. 

It took several days for the emotion to return. This time it came as anger and withdrawal. 

It was 10:30 at night and my husband was hungry. I busied myself in the kitchen cooking rice and fried potatoes. He asked me to add a handful of small frozen grape-sized fruit to the potatoes when they were just about done. As he ate, he asked if I wanted to try them. I said no. Why not? Just one, he pleaded. I refused. 

I'm tired of being told to eat this and eat that. I don't want to eat it and if I do, I will let you know, I retorted. Hurt, he replied, It's something new and I thought you would like to try it. Busily washing up and tidying the kitchen, I said, Sometimes I reach my limit for new things for the week, or the month. Or even the year.

As the words came without thought, I stopped in my emotional tracks and realized where the frustrated words came from. I had indeed reached my limit and yet, I had neither recognized it, affirmed it, validated it, or taken time to process it. It was something I had been viscerally experiencing for several weeks by then, but had not been able to put words to it. It came fleetingly, when I wistfully looked at a picture of the new house my aunt and uncle had purchased in the north of the Netherlands. I could only dream of owning a house. Most days I worried about retirement and whether I would end up living in a car or under a bridge one day. It came forcefully, when my body could cope no longer with the short nights, public transportation, cold apartment, and social expectations, and I ended up sick in bed on Christmas Day with a nasty cold. The cough from that cold lasted two full weeks as it settled into my already-struggling lungs. It came quietly, when I stopped going out and exploring the city I had been so excited to make my home a year ago and instead lost myself in mindless games on my phone or Netflix series. It came surprisingly, when I wondered if it wouldn't be so bad after all to return to the US and look for a job. At least I would be able to navigate the medical system there and I could understand the language. 

How long does culture shock last? I wondered. A quick search online proved unfruitful. There were stages, generally accepted as the honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, and acceptance stages. Some websites declared it could take a few weeks to a few months to move through the stages, but I had already passed the few months. And I was stuck in the frustration stage. 

Maybe for the TCA (third culture adult), culture shock doesn't follow a nicely charted graph. Maybe it is a series of ups and downs, with mostly downs if it is one in a long line of countries required to be adapted to. Maybe a TCA doesn't always have to be happy to move. Happy to learn a new language. Happy to figure out where to find a gentle dentist. 

The websites have a plethora of recommendations of how to get past the hump of culture shock as if it is something that must be overcome and put in the past, along with any memories of a good life before the challenges I am facing now. The TCA is advised to socialize with the locals—just about impossible in a huge city where people are impatiently hurrying from responsibility to cultural expectation and have neither time nor patience to try to decipher my halting broken sentences. They shouldn't indulge in thoughts of home and constantly compare it to the new place they now live in—but when I'm confronted by a horde of grannies with their carts, intent on pushing their way past me to snag the freshest cucumbers at the Friday market, I can't help but think of the spacious Costco aisles lined with organic produce and polite shoppers. One website brightly announces that moving to another country to live is "one of the most exciting life experiences you can undertake." They fail to add that it can also be one of the most difficult experiences in your life. 

For the TCA, culture shock is more complex than the adjustments a monocultural person experiences when they move to another country for a period of time. The monocultural person comes with their identity anchors firmly placed as they hover over the new country temporarily, absorbing some of the language and culture and lifestyle, but never fully committing to their new home. After all, they will soon return to the familiar and all this will fade into the Google Photos album on their phone that they will pull up to brag to friends about their semester or couple of years abroad.

The TCA, on the other hand, enters the new country with a Pandora's box of emotions. While they are letting go of the memories from their previous country, simultaneously they must acclimate to the new country to the extent that they are indistinguishable from a local. They must learn the language without an accent, love the foods with their unique tastes and textures, dress in the garb and quickly learn the nuances of how to address elders, cross your legs, blow your nose, or any other such quirk of the culture. On top of all these adjustments is the ever-present knowing that they do not have a home anchor. They have been shaped by all the countries they have lived in but cannot lay claim to a single one that they can call their own. This state of liminality is not simply a rite of passage—it is their identity. They exist in confusion because they never really know who they are. 

Perhaps another recommendation is not what is needed for this TCA. Perhaps what would help heal the soft keening of a soul lost in the swirl of countries is simply an understanding soul to come alongside and sit with them. Maybe cry a little together. Say, It's okay to feel this way. That we can find a dentist another day. And share a Snickers bar together. 

The Angel of the Shampoo Bottle

Did you give me $200 in the past month? I asked my husband. He looked at me oddly. 

$200? For what? When? Why?

I don't know! I am counting my money, I have $200 extra ,and I don't know where it came from! I replied in frustration. 

I grew up with a mother as an accountant and at a very young age I learned how to take care of my money. First, we always put aside 10% of our pocket money for tithes and then another 10% for offerings. Those were given in church. Then we put aside another 10% for charity, which, as my mother explained, was for helping poor people or buying gifts for others. The remaining 70% was ours to keep or save as we wished.

As I was just a kid and not needing to save up for anything big anytime soon, I usually spent my money on chocolates, ice-cream cones, sodas, and books. I loved books. I saved up my pocket money each week until I had enough to buy the next book in the St. Clare's series. I'd go down to the corner bookstore and point to the one I wanted, then hand over my carefully hoarded Egyptian pounds. 

Or, if I had extra, I would buy the icecream cones that came in a paper wrapper with the thin cardboard lid on top. Once I pulled the tab back, revealing the sweet treat underneath, I would check the lid to see if there was a You have won! printed inside. If I had, I could return to the shop and get another ice-cream cone for free. The best part was the bottom of the cone with its solid chocolate core. Usually I didn't win, but my mom did several times and I was quite envious of her. I had better luck with the emerald green glass bottles of Sprite. I would pop the metal cap, peer underneath, and if I saw the magic words I would run to get a free bottle of soda. 

As I grew up, the few pounds changed into a few euros and then a few dollars as I moved from country to country. Uncles tucked a few bank notes into my hand, grandparents carefully counted out our vacation allowance that they had been saving all year, and family friends gave from their generosity. Then I was earning money from cleaning toilets and helping a little old lady in a purple tracksuit with deep purple socks walk around the loop for her constitutional. And each time I put aside 10% for tithes and 10% for offerings. The 10% for charity had, by now, morphed into my regular spending as I tended to help others on a regular basis. 

Over the years there were stories, time and time again, of how God provided at just the right time for my needs. When we had to go to the dentist, a family friend donated their Sabbath earnings from the hospital towards our dental bills. When I needed to pay for my sponsored child in Bangladesh, the little old lady whose cards I helped write and bills I helped pay gave me my pay a month in advance. When we needed to buy appliances for our apartment, the money we made from selling our household items in the previous country covered all we needed to buy and more. 

And each time I sat down to do my accounts, I marveled. I marveled at God's goodness, His generosity, and His deep intimacy with the little details of my life. Nobody else knew when I prayed and asked Him for a specific amount of money that summer I spent shredding termite-infested papers hour after hour, doing my part to earn as much money as I could but knowing I would come up short for the expenses I would incur. Yet just a few days before the summer ended, I found myself holding an envelope from a dear family friend that contained the exact amount of money I had been silently asking God for, for several weeks. Where I had just about given up hope, He had never stopped listening to my prayers.

I am convinced there is an angel who tucks cash into different places and refills shampoo, oil, and rice containers, I told my mom. And I was. I knew there had to be. There was no other explanation as to how two people could manage on a missionary salary, regularly host guests, and still have a fridge/freezer and cupboards full to bursting with dry goods and staples. We were never in want and had never been. 

Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.

Fear the Lord, you His holy people

for those who fear Him lack nothing.

The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

~Psalm 34:8-10