Saturday, March 21, 2009

Up at 7 on a Sunday

I'm awake at 7 a.m. on a Sunday. That's momentous enough in and of itself! I'm an off-and-on insomniac, so I'm kind of used to it. I'd love to be asleep, but at least it's daylight and quiet enough to think and pray and write.

I woke up about an hour ago thinking. Not about packing, about handing off ministry, about making sure we spend quality time with everybody, about finding a place to live, about health insurance, or my upcoming training and tests for interpretation. That stuff popped into my head, sure, but since I can't do anything about most of that from Spain, and I can't do anything about any of that at 7 on a Sunday, I'm learning to calm down my racing mind before it gets to panic by going ahead and praying (I guess I can do something, then). "God, I put our time in your hands. I put finding a place to live in your hands. I put health insurance (and our health!) in your hands..." I seriously go down the list of all the racing thoughts.

But what has stuck in my head this morning is a silly question. Or maybe it's not silly, I don't know.

When people in Memphis ask where I'm from, what do I say?

Kentucky?
--True, but not the whole story. I haven't lived there for almost a decade, and while part of my heart will always be there, I can't honestly say I'm from KY and allow that to sum things up.

Tennessee?
--Less true. I lived there almost 5 years and loved it, but I never even got a Tennessee driver's license.

Spain?
--This one feels the most right to me at the moment. Spain is the one place I've ever chosen as my home. I had to work hard at first at choosing to love Spain, but now it comes naturally. This is where I feel like I am most myself--at the moment I'm more MadrileƱa than anything else. There's only one problem. I'm not Spanish. I can't even fake the accent like Paul. Plus, five and a half out of 27 years can't tell the whole story either.

So where am I from?

One thing I've joked about here is that our international church community is unique in that "where are you from" is a ten minute conversation with everyone in the church. Everyone has moved around, and no one feels like they can be defined by one place.

Is that ok in the U.S.? I don't know. Will I sound like an idiot when I can't answer a simple question with a simple answer? Do people even ask where you're from in the States, or is that something unique to a community full of immigrants?

I am from KentuckyTennesseeSpain. Does that work?

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