Melisa’s comments remind me so much of what I experienced in India. I wasn’t posting on this blog at that time or I might have written about that trip. My younger sisters have both spent time overseas, one in Africa (well, actually she’s been in Asia and Europe a lot from her former work life) and the other in Central America. My younger brother who is now deceased did a mission trip to Cuba.
Each of us in our own way, must process what we see and figure out how we can come to grips with the utter lack of things where we have been and the incredible supply of them here in the US. My sister Karen said that, to her, returning to the US is harder than going to the poorer country. I suspect that is because we become immune to what we exist with here and see it afresh when we return. My friend Mary, who has served for lengthy periods in the Philippines, reminds me that the returning person must write down what they have seen and experienced, and they must talk about it in the hope of raising awareness among our fellow citizens.
If you are willing to read, we are willing to write, hence the title of this blog, “Reflecting the World.”
In many ways, the people I deal with who are “participants” in the criminal justice system are as foreign to the majority of us as people in other countries. Maybe one difference is that it is harder for us to feel concern for them because we suppose they can and should live up to our standards. When they don’t we put them down or write them off. They don’t get the benefit of our thought that they are somehow limited because they are from a third world country. But if you get the chance to deal with them as people – perhaps through a prison visit or otherwise – you begin to see the complexity of the person emerge. And, as when we truly engage people from foreign cultures, seeing the breadth of the person opens a whole new perspective on our fellow man. Once you have a chance to experience this, you cannot help but be changed.
I’ve been glad for the time I’ve spent in prison exploring prison ministry as well. And it turns out to have been a great help to me in my ministry to members who have family members in prison. They know I understand what they are talking about. I’ve recently put together an email prayer group of folks who have some experience with the criminal justice system, and they are grateful to have one another–and because it’s something rarely talked about, they didn’t know there were so many in our small church.
My memory of reverse culture shock was astonishment at driving out of Chicago on a 10-lane highway. The biggest highway in Central America–which runs all the way from Mexico to South America is two lanes.