What Did You Expect?

The long-awaited, much-dreamed-about day is here. God has brought you to the land you prayed for, where you plan to love the people, and hopefully be loved back.

And as you set your aching, travel-worn feet on foreign soil, everything seems different than you expected. The smells and sounds that immediately assault your senses pull at your jet-lagged mind that’s just traveled across too many time zones to keep track of.

And then you look down at the wide-eyed baby in your arms and the toddler with his arms wrapped around your leg, curiosity written all over his face. A shot of adrenaline races from your brain sending signals to get your body moving and waking up your mind. Eager to clear customs, collect those 25 pieces of luggage and head off to your new home, you and your family walk in the direction of Passport Control.

After descending three flights of stairs, you find yourself at the back of what looks like a mob, pushing and shoving to get to the next available passport control window. The shock is overwhelming, and before you know it, your eyes have filled with tears. With a big gulp you look to your husband for reassurance and as you take in your toddler’s excited anticipation, you blink back tears and bolster yourself for what looks like a long wait with a 6-month-old in your arms.

Unexpectedly, an elderly woman, who resembles everything you ever thought a Babushka should look like, grabs your arm and propels you to the front of the mob, pushing people out of your way as you go. As you look at people’s faces around you, you expect to see disgust, but instead you see smiles of resignation as the Babushka barks her orders and continues pushing you through. When you finally reach the front, with a smile on your face, you try out what little you know of the language and tell her “thank you”. She nods her head matter-of-factly, seemingly satisfied with a job well done.

With a relieved sigh, you look back glad to see your husband, toddler and stroller also made their way through the mob in your wake. Filled with anticipation to truly step across the border and enter the land that will be your new home, your husband collects all four passports and pushes the gate open for you all to walk through, leaving Passport Control behind.

Another mob awaits you at the baggage claim carousel, but you gladly set up camp in the corner with the children, while your husband hunts for and collects each one of the 25 pieces of luggage you so carefully packed over the last several months. Wonderfully helpful, two local guys come by with a big dolly and offer to help load up all 25 pieces to get them out of the customs hall. Only problem is that what they ask you to pay for their service seems reasonable, which is what you just paid for the same service in your home country.

Finally, with all the luggage loaded up and ready to go, you exit customs, overjoyed to greet your teammates on the other side. Relief at making it this far pouring through every limb.

Then with a thud, you realize you’ve been had. Your teammate shakes his head in disappointment upon hearing what the airport guys expect to be paid for helping to get your luggage out. And as you step into the pre-dawn morning air, you acknowledge that you’ve just experienced your very first moments of culture shock and have had your first few lessons in your new culture’s norms. And you haven’t even left the airport.

With the truck loaded up now, you head for home. As you pull up to an old Soviet monolith apartment building, tears once again fill your eyes, and panic seizes you. “What have you done?!” screams through your mind. Gone is your little house in the suburbs with the quiet sidewalks and fenced in backyard where the kids play. From now on, you will all live in this Soviet-style apartment on the 7th floor of an 12-floor building on streets named “Kurmangazi” and “Zholtaksen”.

As if in a daze, you walk through the threshold into your new home, but your toddler pushes passed you running through the apartment. You slowly move into the living room and slide down onto the couch, letting the tears spill over your eyes. Not tears of regret though, but rather grateful tears taking in your son’s pure joy as he skips and runs from room to room, absolutely excited to be home.

And a peace fills your heart, as you rejoice with your son in the new home God has provided in this new land. You will trust that the God who has called you to this place will walk with you through each moment of culture shock and help you learn each one of this new culture’s norms.

And it was all so much more and so much better than we ever expected.