Going “home” after two years was harder than I thought.
Two-thousand-fifteen.
It had been nearly two years since my family left California for Japan. What would this experience be like, I wondered, as my flight from Narita began its descent into LAX on a Friday afternoon in April.
It turned out to be jarring.
The first thing I noticed was how dry the air was–a welcome change after two years in Japan, where the air is so humid that mold spreads like fire in the absence of dehumidifiers and desiccants. The second thing I noticed were the palm trees. Palm trees along every road. I hadn’t seen palm trees in nearly two years.
The third thing I noticed was how bright the sun seems to be in LA. Everything in my field of view looked like a washed-out, overexposed photograph. Was it the reflection of sunlight against the smog?
And the fourth thing I noticed was how scary LA traffic is. I couldn’t believe that I had learned how to drive in this area and had spent most of my driving career on the streets of southern California. Los Angeles traffic looked like a scene out of Mad Max compared to the orderly driving I had grown accustomed to in Japan.
Thirty minutes off the plane and it already felt like I was in an alien world.
But wait– didn’t I spend over thirty years of my life in So Cal and less than two in Japan? How could everything feel so different to me?
Two years abroad may not sound like a long time, but that is over 700 consecutive days, and you get used to life being a certain way after repeating your routines 700 times in a row.
I had a plastic water bottle to dispose of but I didn’t know what to do, as there were only two receptacles: one for trash and one for recyclables. Could I really recycle this plastic bottle without first rinsing it out, drying it, and cutting off the label? Appalling.
I had stopped at a supermarket on the way from the airport, and as I tried to traverse narrow aisles where other shoppers were coming from the opposite direction, I’d bow to either let them go ahead of me or to thank them for letting me go first. One of them shot me a “What’s wrong with this guy?” look.
Bowing to shoppers at Albertsons? Not knowing how to dispose of trash? What was wrong with me?
I was experiencing reverse culture shock. And it wouldn’t be limited to a geographic change.
I was in town to interview for a role at the church that had been my spiritual home for 11 years. It was the church that I came to faith in, the church that empowered me to serve, the church where I learned the ropes of ministry and became a pastor. The church sent my family off to Japan in 2013 and we remained fairly disconnected from it during our time overseas, only because adjusting to life in Japan demanded so much of our attention.
We did hear of some staff transitions that had taken place– one former staffer told me in an email that over 25 staff members had moved on since I left for Japan. That couldn’t be right, I thought. We didn’t even have 25 positions at the church. How could 25 staffers turn over in under two years?
I started counting on my fingers, the way my then-five-year-old son would, rattling off names of staff members I knew personally but were no longer there. I stopped counting after I hit 17; the remaining 8 had started working there after I left, so I did not know who they were.
We had also heard that the church had gone through a bumpy transition from Irvine to Santa Ana, though we didn’t know the details. I did hear something about pain in the children’s ministry.
And here I was, interviewing to be the children’s pastor.
I had been briefed on the situation before flying out to LA. Several candidates had applied for the role, but the search committee, I was told, was looking for someone who was more of a shepherd to families, to provide pastoral care during a difficult season. My name had come up as a candidate, as I had been the prayer ministry pastor before leaving for Japan.
I met with the committee on Saturday for my interview. We talked about the degree I was working towards in seminary and how this specific program is meant to train children’s and youth pastors. We talked about my ideas for children’s ministry. And we talked about the tsunami relief and recovery work I was doing in Japan.
One of the committee members suggested that my experience with disaster relief might have prepared me to deal with the devastation caused by an “emotional tsunami” that had swept through the church.
From one disaster to another? Surely, it couldn’t have been that bad.
After my interview, I was free to connect with old friends for the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday, when I was able to attend morning services at the church. Familiar faces welcomed me back. New faces introduced themselves. Lots of handshakes and hugs.
And lots of stories.
It felt like people were bringing their frustrations to me while I was in town, having held them to themselves all this time.
What was I getting myself into?
One friend expressed concern that I would be giving up ministry in Japan to come back to a place that might someday add me to that 25+ person list. I assured this friend that, after a lengthy discernment process, I believed that God had called me to do this.
I left LA on Monday morning and returned to Japan to await the results of the search process.
