We went to church this morning. We’ve been to church three times since we got back, … which means that we’ve been to church three times in the past 3 years! Not very good attendance, I’m afraid! Seriously though, we are looking for a church now that we’re back from the Middle East and want to take our time. We won’t ever find a “perfect” church, because there isn’t one! But we need to find one where we can fit it as a family.

There are a few funny things about church after not having gone for so long. First of all you don’t know any of the songs. Except for the one during the children’s talk which is “Jesus Loves the Little Children”….and which your eldest son is too embarrassed to sing because it is a little kids one (yes, he’s at that age…!) Then it is all the “rituals” which were once so familiar and normal, and you now look at with different eyes. At the last church service our youngest son wanted to know what the bags were for that they were passing around Uh oh, we’re bringing our kids up as heathens! Thankfully we will get back into the swing of things and get to know people and the customs again. It is almost like adapting to a different culture.

When we were overseas we adapted to the culture there as much as we could. We were patient with things that we thought were silly. We were willing to learn. When we come back to our own culture, we often think it will be easy, we’ll just slot back in. But no… things have changed while we were gone. Someone is sitting in our spot at church! Not just that, but they have changed the seating arrangement. The songs are new! The worship is done differently! Why are they reading out the prayers instead of just praying ad lib? I can’t find the toilet anymore!! How easy it would be to criticize.

We need to treat our re-entry into our home country with as much patience as we treated our adaptation into the new culture we just came from. After a while we will no longer look confused when we walk into a shop and see the huge variety of choices. After a while we will no longer look confused at church when we sing and partake of the Lord’s Supper (do we eat and drink together, do we wait…?). After a while we will no longer look at the money and wonder what the 20 coin looks like. After a while we will learn the songs. After a while we will make new friends. After a while we might even dress like everyone else And then the culture that we adopted over the past years will slowly fade away…..