Recently, I attended a presentation where the speaker was a teacher I had known and taught with while working abroad. Dorothy shared numerous pictures and related many stories. My heart hurt because I missed being overseas. The memories of all my students and friends came flooding back, and I wished I could climb on a plane and begin teaching there all over again.
As I walked home bemoaning the fact I was no longer in such a place of wonderful ministry, I heard voices talking in clear, Mandarin. I looked up and there was a Chinese international visiting scholar and an international PhD student. I have known both these ladies for some time and feel close to them. They stopped and we chatted for a minute. I told one of them I was on my way to take care of something one of them had asked for my help with earlier.
It was after this interaction that I realized, "Here I am bemoaning the fact that I am not overseas, when I now have all the freedom in the world to share my faith and life with these ladies. Why am I complaining when God has given me a huge gift, not in just these two teachers, but in the hundreds of international students and scholars I have interacted with, helped, and discipled over the last six years! If I were to go to overseas, I would miss the work I am doing here equally as much as I now miss being in overseas."
Thank God for this reality check!