Growing Pains: Did you really think there wouldn't be a cost?

“That day when you sent me out so boldly to change the world, did you really think there wouldn't be a cost?” --Martin Luther in the movie “Luther”

When we enter Christian service on any level, we'd be terribly naive to believe there will be no cost. Any perusal of scripture leaves no doubt, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps,” 1 Peter 2:21 explains. But so often the cost proves very different from what we brace ourselves for.

I recently read of blog about how missionaries can never go home again. They are truly strangers and aliens when they go home on furlough as they return to a world that is no longer their own. Friends and family members' lives have moved on. They find they no longer really fit in. So “going home” is really not going home at all. Back in the country where they serve, they find they can never fully fit in either. They are always a little behind the power curve. In one way it has become home; in another, they find they remain just another foreigner. And so we, as missionaries, are truly strangers in a strange land wherever we go. It is cost that comes with the territory.

I have largely learned to just accept it. It is a price that must be paid to have the privilege of living an extraordinary experience in the plan of God for this world. And it is very worth it. The alternative of just remaining hunkered down in one spot never understanding that people see the world differently, to me, is completely unthinkable.

But lately, this cost has erupted with new significance for me. Everyone thinks about the sacrifices missionaries make when the leave their home country for the mission field. Few give thought to the pain involved when circumstances require missionaries to leave the mission field they so desperately love to go “home.”

America is not home anymore for me. Mikepercs, Hungary is home with all its roosters crowing in the middle of the night, the dogs barking, and the smell of coal thickening the winter air. The horse-and-wagons rumbling down the street outside our house still make me smile as do the sounds of the village festivals melding the croaking frogs in the midsummer's twilight.

And yet, circumstances beyond our control, confirmed by affirmation from above (that I really did not want to listen to), have made it clear that in this next year we will be returning to the states.

In a lot of ways for us, it is like moving to a mysterious foreign country. The USA has changed so much since we lived there some 15 years ago. Technology has evolved. I don't even know how to pay bills in America anymore. I feel awkward and ignorant when I am in the states. I still feel that way in Hungary sometimes, but people understand that here. I am a foreigner!

I don't know how to use a smart phone! I've forgotten that gas comes in gallons, and how much is gallon, anyway? Miles instead of kilometers. Pounds instead of kilograms. No one walks anywhere. Public transportation is scarce. Food tastes funny because of all the preservatives. I am already culture shocking and we haven't even left yet!

Once again we find ourselves strangers in a strange land. And it is scary, scarier than when we came to Hungary, because we have three teenagers to shepherd through the radical change – three kids who know little about American life and culture.

When watching the movie “Luther” the other night, one quote stood out to me. As Luther's views began to shake up the establishment, he was confronted by his early mentor. Luther responded, “Did you really think there wouldn't be a cost?” It echoed in the recesses of my spirit.

Yes, I thought there would be a cost, but I didn't count on it being this one. It hurts to lose Hungary and the remarkable people I have come to know and love here. The things they have taught me shall be treasured in my heart for decades to come. They have made me into the person I am. Hungary has changed me, and I cannot imagine my life without this precious place.

And still we must go. Through the ache and with a heavy sigh, we will have to move forward and again become “strangers and aliens” because we indeed are not of this world.

No, moving to Texas is not going home. The only real home will not be found here in the “puszta” of Hungary or there on the plains of Texas. The only true home will be found in the Heavenly hereafter.

This perpetual sense of loss and feeling of homelessness is all part of the cost. And although the cost is high, I'd suffer the ache again and again. Because at the end of this life, I know the pain will not prove pointless. It will prove to have been what's necessary to grow into what I needed to be. 

It's just

growing pains.

The Village Idiot

After a month in America, returning to Hungarian village life can be ... abrupt.

Gone are the days of high-speed vans with automatic doors that open like magic. Gone are the days of being taken out to restaurant meals every night, and clear communication with folks who actually believe (however deceived they might be) that I am an intelligent human being.

Today, I awakened to the reality that I am the village idiot.

Since I speak Hungarian on roughly a four year old level, the villagers have come to accept me as a mental four year old. And today I lived up to their expectations. It began when I dropped the girls off at Ovoda (Hungarian Kindergarten) and found the entire class, including the teacher, decked out in fine white shirts and black pants -- the traditional special event attire.

They had to tell me three times before I figured out they wanted me to go home and get appropriate attire for my girls. Thankfully, they are patient and generous toward the village idiot, and one of the teachers let me borrow her bike so I could make the trip across the village and back before they departed for the event.

Following this scramble, I proceeded into the day's tasks, stopping off at the village "Gummi Szerviz," or "Tire Service" shop. The adorable little old man, clad in blue work overalls, listened patiently as I slowly, painstakingly explained I would be buying summer tires in the city today and I wanted him to put them on this afternoon. His gray eyes began to glaze over as I struggled to construct the sentence. It was as if he were thinking, "By the time you get this horrendously constructed sentence out, you won't need summer tires, because it will be winter again!"

It can be humbling to be the village idiot. It can be frustrating when no one understands your words, and everyone doubts your mental capabilities.

But I would not trade it for a dozen Americas. For all the enticing things America has, for me there is something grander and more alluring in the simplicity of Hungarian village life, and serving God in its midst -- even as the village idiot.

So, it is good to be home in Hungary again, or as I would say it in what I suspect is very poor Hungarian, "Nagyon jó van lenni otthon Mikepércsen!"