On a Thursday, my teammate got a call notifying him that one of our STINTers (Short Term INTernational workers) needed to return to the States as soon as possible. The next day, I was asked to be the person to go and walk the team through the transition in light of this crisis situation and help the STINTer get home.
I spent the weekend frantically booking last-minute flights and searching for resources. While we bring STINTers home early from time to time, it is rare enough that resources are hard to find. Global Missions teammates around the country responded with their best (but sparse) advice, and I prayed for wisdom. I also scrambled to do laundry and pack and research M*slim culture I would encounter.
Monday morning I got a quick security briefing, and I drove to DC to beat the impending blizzard. I flew out of DC on Tuesday, after a very uneventful "blizzard”. Had I chosen to fly out of our usual airports (Newark or JFK), my flight would have been canceled and I would have been stuck. Praise the Lord for providence!
I woke up the next morning on another continent, in a country in which I spoke none of the languages. Some of our workers were waiting for me just outside the airport, and they knew the culture and the language and how things work, but before I got to them I would first have to navigate it alone. When I got to the customs officer, about whom I was warned and who I knew would ask me tough questions, I asked him lots of excited questions about his country. He was friendly and chatty and let me pass through easily, an answer to prayer!
My week in-country was full of difficult conversations. The whole team met together for a full day to walk through some debriefing questions, and I had one-on-one conversations with almost every member of the team to listen to, pray for, and care for them. We took time to celebrate all that the Lord has done and to pray for many things. I was blessed with opportunities to experience the culture and see parts of the city that the local team loves. We ate awesome food and drank a lot of really good coffee. In a very quick visit, I got to see some of the really hard parts of living in that culture and fell in love with some really beautiful parts.
The STINTer and I said our goodbyes set off on our journey back to the US on a Tuesday. When we landed, she headed home for two weeks of transition time. The next day I drove home and fought jetlag, and the following day I was back in the office. It was a whirlwind, and I seriously loved every single moment. Even the hard ones. It's a blessing to serve in this role, to cross cultures, and to care for our workers overseas.
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