Warning:  I have a feeling I might sound cynical in the post.

Disclaimer: I don't mean to be.  I just don't want to beat around the bush. 

OK, maybe it's just because every Christian young person I know right now in the States wants to come to Africa "for the children" that I'm feeling a stirring to rant a little about cross-cultural living.  Here it comes...

Making the choice to leave what is familiar and go take up residency where it is not familiar is not a game we play because we got high at Christian camp.  (Ouch.  That was harsh.)

This is not a vacation/adventure that is designed to ease my guilt about the fact that a vast majority of the world lives on less than $2 a day or that millions of people die every year without ever knowing the  freedom and fullness of Christ. 

As much as I resist talking about "calling"  I have to say that cross-cultural living is, in fact, a calling.   

Why is it a calling?  Well, for starters, it's not for everyone.  I don't believe that God is asking everyone to pack up and go somewhere else.

I believe that God has wired some of us for this set of challenges.  Others he has wired for the challenge of 9-5 or 8-6 or 7-7 or whatever it is in L.A.  

Disclaimer #2  You may not opt out of cross-cultural living based on the above observation.  You're going to need to seriously consider whether or not you are called out before you settle into life where you already are.  

Let me go straight to the point.  Living cross-culturally is hard.  Hard as in difficult.  Difficult as in painful. Painful as in traumatizing.  

Some times I think that the bottom line is this: opting to move out of the culture where you are most at home and to willingly place yourself in a culture other than the one that considers you an insider, is to knowingly choose to live a life in which you will always feel dumb and never totally at home.

Dumb because I will never pick up all the cultural clues.  Dumb because I will never know all the traditions and norms.  Dumb because I will never master every nuance of the language.  Never totally at home because I am not an insider in my new place and I have become an outsider in my old place.

But honestly, I didn't set out to focus on the negative in this post.  

What I want to say is this:

This is a serious, difficult and amazing business.

I think of it this way...

A couple of days ago our family spent about 8 hours hiking together.  It was just the 6 of us traversing ground that we didn't really know.  Initially, we headed up the wrong hill and ended up hanging onto a cliff with all of East Africa seeming to fall away below us.  You need to understand here that I am sorely afraid of heights.  I'm the kind who gets sweaty palms when her kids walk along a well-railed balcony.  

I don't mind admitting to you that when we were huddled on that cliff wondering if it was possible to get all of us, including me (Mom, 45) and Heather (youngest child, 9) back down and over to the right path,  I cried. 

But I got over that section and we made our way successfully to the correct path.  We saw things that were too beautiful to describe, really.  We were hiking up a river in the desert, coming out of heat and sand and into gorges and canyons with hanging palm trees and gushing springs thundering down the cliffs.  

But there was more to frighten me on the way.  There were sections where we had to rock climb.  Not terribly high sections, but the rushing river on the side of cliffs we were climbing, reminded me that danger was close at hand.  Fast moving water or hard rocks to land on--take your pick.

At the top, the source of the river was a bowl of very high cliffs, the likes of which I have never seen.  We were there together below them, lying on our backs in the warm sand and eating lunch and enjoying the moments deeply.

But we still had to get back out.  I swear to you, the final 40 minutes just about killed me.  By now I was tired, of course, though exultant at the wonderful day.  Still, I hadn't seemed to notice on the way in (probably so relieved to be off that first cliff) that the slippery gravel path at the start of the hike was actually on a high ridge above a very rocky fall to a very swift river.  It was all I could do to keep my eyes firmly fixed on the feet of my 21 year old son ahead of me and just place my feet where his had been.  My husband was right behind me, speaking soothing words of strength to me.

And here's the thing.  I climbed into our little tent that night 100% happy that I had done that hike.  I had cried and been terrified, but I had seen things so preciously beautiful that my heart was fuller and better for having seen them.  And I had bonded with a small crew of family to experience it all.  We accomplished it together.

It occurred to me that this is exactly like my long life of cross-cultural living.  It has had moments of terrible pain, awkwardness,  fear and despair.  But it has carried with it a beauty and richness of experience that I cannot even begin to tell.

At the end of the day, I have found that God gives grace for what he calls us to.

(And I'm still so glad I'm called to this.)