I Miss Home

Recently, during a teachers’ conference at school, I had a chance to take a look at Google Earth. Instructed by the speaker at the conference, I played around with Google Earth and naturally, I looked up my address back in Virginia. I rolled the Earth to the east to find the United States, found Virginia, zoomed toward Prince William County, located Lake Ridge and I-95, followed Old Bridge Road, passed Fantasy Playground and Springwoods Elementary School, and voila! Our home sweet home. The image on Google Earth showed our old red Chevy Spark parked in the normal spot when I used to commute to my workplace in Manassas about a year ago. The image most likely does not mean anything to anyone (in fact, including my wife – she was more excited to see Fantasy Playground on Google Earth, where Yura used to play with her friends), but it certainly made me miss Virginia, miss my home.

Google Earth, Our Home Back in Virginia

There is no doubt that most, if not all, missionaries miss their home at some point in their missionary journey abroad. Although I hear often and also say it myself, “Our home is in heaven,” it would be unwise to ignore the fact that missionaries do miss their home country and get homesick. Missionaries feel lonely and exhausted, finding less and less opportunities to feel “at home” in foreign lands. The loneliness and exhaustion come not just from experiencing a language barrier but more so from a cultural barrier. A foreigner must learn seemingly unlimited new ways of living in the new society. For example, I recently almost got into a trouble when I took a train to school for the very first time since I arrived in Hirosaki City. I unintentionally got off from the train without paying the ticket because I did not know how to pay it. I had to understand and explain myself that I thought the change machine was a payment machine. The stress that comes from these small incidents pile up and eventually explode into homesickness.

Typical Train Station in Rural Japan

For me, the biggest challenge (?) is the food. I am craving American food too much. I miss all fast-food chains – McDonald’s, Burger King, Popeye’s, and KFC were our favorites. I miss Papa John’s and fries from Red Robin. To this date, I sincerely regret from the bottom of my heart that I forgot to go to Cracker Barrel before coming to Japan. I do not need to mention Thai and Korean food that I could get in Northern Virginia, especially the Korean Chinese which was our go-to eat-out menu for all occasions. I probably could go on and on, but you get the point. I miss the food back at home. Unfortunately, it breaks my heart that I cannot find none of these I mentioned in Hirosaki City. Yes, you can find McDonald’s. I bet it would be more difficult to find a place where no McDonald’s is around, but the food is strangely different from what you can get from McDonald’s in the States. The other day, I was craving for pizza, and we ordered a delivery pizza. The very first problem was that I could not customize the toppings, which made me impossible to order black olives and pineapples for the toppings, which is the only way how I order pizza. Reluctantly, I ordered two medium pizzas with something else. When we opened the pizza box, we realized that the two medium pizzas we got were smaller than one medium pizza back in the States. Moreover, the two medium pizzas certainly look like a pizza and did taste okay, but they were nothing like the pizza back in the States that I held dear. The result? My craving for American pizza is yet to be satisfied.

Black Olives and Pineapple Pizza

What am I going to do with this homesickness? It is ironic, but despite all these issues and challenges, at the end, I come back to my initial statement and say myself, “My home is in heaven, and I miss my home.” I have to understand that as much as I miss Virginia, I miss my home in heaven. No, in fact, I should miss my home in heaven more than I miss Virginia as I live in Japan where I am constantly surrounded by and reminded of temples, shrines, and idolatry. No, in fact, regardless of where I am and what I do, as a believer and follower of Jesus, I shall miss my home in heaven the most, dreaming and envisioning about the reunion that I will experience when Jesus comes back again to take me home. I realize that God let me experience this homesickness to show me how I should be homesick for my home in heaven. It may sound weird, but I am glad that I am homesick.

How about you? Do you feel homesick?

Jesus Will Be Back!

Taeho