One of the very real issues with cross-cultural work is the idea of culture shock – a period of adjustment and struggle when surrounded by an entirely new culture. The overwhelming feeling was one of exhaustion because everything was always new and different all the time. However, gradually we adjusted to our life here and it became normal and routine.
Any literature you read will also caution that the same is true when you return home, there is a very real and difficult reverse culture shock and most people’s experience (including Duncan’s after Zambia) is that it is even worse than the initial culture shock, largely because it surprises you. You expect to return home to a familiar life but find that it is no longer familiar because things have changed in your absence and even those that remain the same seem different because you yourself have changed.
To prepare for returning home, we searched for some books that would give some insight into this reverse culture shock and help us prepare. In particular we were interested in any information that would also give guidance on how to prepare young ones for re-entry. In particular we have found Re-entry: Making the Transition From Missions to Life at Home to provide some excellent information, reflective questions and practical questions to prepare us for our return.
To that end, we decided to take a mini-retreat as a family over the last couple of days to do some intentional reflecting both on our time here and our return to life in Canada. We found a very reasonably priced cottage in the Drakensberg mountains and holed away with some planned activities and unplanned fun. This ended up being particularly refreshing after hosting 6 young adults for three weeks as they ran a VBS here in town as well as a fellow missionary family from Johannesburg for a week. At one point there were 18 people at the dinner table for several nights!
The first afternoon, we presented the kids with mini photo albums of pictures representing their life here in South Africa – friends, church, trips and ministry. The kids were thrilled to receive them and they then helped us create captions to go in them. We hope that these will serve as a visual cue for explaining their experience to friends and family as well as a permanent keepsake of their time here.
The following day the kids created scrapbook collages of their favourite things from South Africa using grocery flyers, candy wrappers and tourism magazines. We have them laminated to last and again, hopefully, they will be a reminder of their time here in the years to come.
One of our family traditions is to keep an Ebenezer, a vase filled with rocks where we have written evidences of God’s faithfulness or specific answers to prayer in our lives. It was so special to be able to take rocks from Richmond, the beaches in Cape Town and even the farm Duncan’s father grew up on and write down and reflect on the many ways God has shown himself faithful while we’ve been here.
Finally, just this morning we talked about what it will be like travelling home including what/who we’re going to miss and what we’re looking forward to about our return. We talked about what will be the same as when we left Canada and what will be different. And we ended talking about how we were different and so things will look different even if they haven’t changed because we have.
We also managed to fit in a hike, though we turned back early because the weather was not good and lots of kayaking on the ‘mud puddle’ pond on the property. Obviously, there will still be struggles as we adjust together to a new time zone, climate, and environment again but having some time as a family was helpful and we will try to keep some of our familiar routines the same too to give the kids a sense of familiarity.
Please pray for us as we finish out our last five days in South Africa, particularly because those five days are packed with goodbyes and likely much joy but also many tears. It is amazing how dear this country and our friends here have become in a relatively short amount of time. As Levi puts it, “They’re not just friends, they’re TRUE friends Mom!”
From grace to umusa,
Trish
Grace to Umusa 
