2009: Before selfies were invented
My Life as a Sojourner
By Christine Reeve
I don’t remember when it all
started. I guess that’s what happens
when something’s ingrained in you- like when I asked for violin lessons at age
three, or forced my younger sister to play school and complete fake homework
assignments for me on our beat up chalk board in the basement. You don’t recognize your own desire until it
has become a part of you, before you ever knew to ask for it.
Part of this ingraining started with
a love of language. I remember going to
the library before family vacations to get books on tape and every “First
Dictionary” of Spanish and French I could find.
(It stopped abruptly after realizing its ineffectiveness when I first
heard “au revoir” recorded compared to my “our-rev-ore” attempted pronunciation
from pictures alone.) I took every
Spanish class available from middle school on.
No one would say I have a natural aptitude for language acquisition, but
my high interest alongside my intrinsically motivated dorky-ness in school
resulted in good grades and high placement in high school and college. I actually hated my higher-level courses and
wasn’t nearly as successful as I could have been. Conjugating verbs was not then and never will
be a passion of mine. But in the midst of
mundane grammar drills and what were then meaningless lessons on cultures
around the world, something in me still knew there was a deeper purpose to
learning this alternative form of communication. It was ingrained.
I count myself very fortunate to have
had all of my major, life changing decisions made before I really knew what was
going on. When God wants me to do
something or go somewhere, He makes it very clear! My decision to change high schools, where to
go to college, being a teacher, what kind of school to teach in, even who to
marry were made without a second thought.
(If you know me, you know this is not typical and very out of character
for my analytic and indecisive self.) I
had of course thought about studying abroad when I was in high school, but as a
college freshman I found myself happily wrapped up in the campus life and
building an entire new community of friends.
It wasn’t time to leave again yet, and in my mind I had all the time in
the world anyway. But a providential
moment occurred while I was cashiering at my part time job one day. I don’t know what it was, but I knew I just had to do it. A whole semester. Away.
Alone. I knew it had to happen
and I discovered the next day that it was barely
but absolutely possible to go the next spring.
I finally knew that it was happening, I knew when, and it was never a
question of where.
Latin America captured me since my
first encounter at age fourteen. After
two weeks in the communities of the Dominican Republic, I was hooked. Maybe it was the adventure of leaving the
country for the first time. Maybe it was
the welcoming hospitality of a warm climate culture. Maybe it was the relaxed (nonexistent) perception
of time everyone there seemed to maintain.
Either way, I came home fully believing that I had somehow missed my
calling to have been born Latina. And
that belief only became more and more true each time I returned.
So I always knew I’d live in Latin
America if I ever got the chance.
Seizing the opportunity, I spent the spring semester of my sophomore
year living with a host family in Costa Rica and taking classes through the
Latin American Studies Program. There is
nothing more powerful than viewing yourself, your life, your country, from
outside of it. I spent 4 months living
with a family that didn’t speak my language, (talk about humility, when your 5
year old host sister speaks better Spanish than you), in a country that was not
my own, with a group of students and professors that did not know me or the
background in which I was bringing. It
was absolutely refreshing. Gaining perspective doesn’t even begin to cover it. I felt like I had been given another form of
vision, another completely different way of thinking that I’d never been
capable of possessing prior. I saw how
much bigger the world is than how we see it, how many people are affected by
our neglect for social justice when we choose to see only what’s right in front
of us. I saw that my country, even my
own religion, didn’t always make the right choices when it came to taking a stand
for these issues. It made for the most
challenging and life-altering events I had ever experienced, ones that if I had
known what they would entail before hand, I may not have chosen
voluntarily. But I know that is what
makes them so valuable. It’s addicting
to feel that passionate, that intentional, that alive. I knew my life would be drastically different
from that point forward. I also knew
that that trip would not be the last…
No matter how many times I tried to
“branch out,” I somehow always managed to find myself buying similar plane
tickets, all to various places in Central America. Thanks to a budget dedicated mostly to “rent,
food, and travel,” I was able to spend almost an entire year living in Latin
America. I returned to Costa Rica for a
summer to visit my host family and do volunteer work. I completed half of my student teaching at a
school in the Dominican Republic. I
spent another summer backpacking through Central America with nothing but a
return flight and a tour book. I often
wonder if I would love another new culture as much as I love Latin
America. If my pattern in plane tickets
continues, I may never find out. :)
While I still believe that I am a Latina at heart, I
think it is more the life of a sojourner that is ingrained in me. I love the adventure of seeing new places and
not knowing what to expect. I love the
growth I experience after being pushed out of my comfort zone. I love the beauty of other languages, other
cultures, other customs and ways of looking at the same world. I love the perspective and never-ending
questions that come from new journeys.
And like any deep love, it feels completely natural, like I was created
for this. From all of this I have
learned to always trust that whatever country or culture I find myself in,
whether familiar or foreign, I’ll know I was meant to be there. And like every natural sojourner, I
constantly look forward for the next new adventure, never forgetting the path
behind me.
