For those who have lost a loved one, there seem to be five common stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I propose that coming home from a mission trip can drag a person through very similar phases of life. For me, that is exactly what happened. I struggled through the five stages of Missionitus.
The days spent in Honduras were filled to the brim with serving, praying, loving, and worshipping the Lord. Every moment was sweet and eye-opening. Suddenly, our plane landed in Houston and I was handed a passport that had a stamp indicating that my trip was now over and I had entered into the land of the free, the United States of America. It was surreal. “I’m home already?” People were no longer speaking in Spanish, my meals did not include rice and beans, and air conditioners hummed in the background.
Yes, I was incredibly thankful to be back, and I had a renewed sense of purpose. In fact, when people would ask me, “How did it go?” I would deliver as many memories as I could in the amount of time we had together.
“You should have seen the mountains. They were so tall and beautiful. Words cannot describe how it felt to be in a bed of a truck with a live movie of mountainous beauty playing before you. In spending time with the children, God renewed my strength and confidence in Him. Oh, and you should have seen the way the Honduran children played soccer. If recruitment for collegiate teams had no age limit, every one of those elementary-aged children would be on a team.”
Usually, people would smile and hug me, their eyes almost lighting up as they tried to understand how I felt. I wanted so badly to share the emotions I had so that my excitement could be theirs and so that the joy of the Lord might be made apparent to them.
Yet, I was still battling with these aches and pains from the trip. My mind and heart were still in Honduras. Our time had flown by and I felt like the plane had landed in the U.S. with a girl who looked like Celeste and talked like Celeste, but who was empty inside.
Stage 1: Denial
This stage was subtle. As the days at home increased and my time spent in Honduras sunk deeper into the past, I began to forget things. I kept denying that this was occurring in my own mind, but I knew better. Faces became less detailed. Stories hung together by bare-stringed description. I couldn’t tell the days apart and I started to panic. “No, Celeste. You are not forgetting. You cannot be forgetting things that happened less than a week ago.”
Stage 2: Anger
I began to get angry with myself. I even turned my anger toward God and asked Him why my memories were fading. My prayers became adversarial as I fought to pray thankfully for the trip instead of bitterly. On top of this, my anger became frustration with our culture. I would look at people on their phones and become volatile as I thought of Honduran children whose feet were caked with dirt, cut-up, and bruised. A phone could buy them plenty of shoes. I would sit in the back of my American classes listening to disruptive students who in no way respected the teacher and silently become infuriated as I pictured this one Honduran teenager who could barely write his own name but still desired to learn and wanted a Spanish-English dictionary. I couldn’t take it anymore. My body was ablaze with a fury that blindsided me before I could address its presence.
Stage 3: Bargaining
To battle the anger, I turned to bargaining. I would tell myself, “You can handle this discontentment so long as in a few months you move to Honduras and start full-time missions.” I promised myself things that I knew were out of my control and way in the future. I bargained with the Lord and tried to trade cultural comforts, like cold water and a hot shower, so that I could remove myself from the “American” way of life and better remember what it had been like in Honduras. At this point in time, I was out of whack. I didn’t know what I wanted or didn’t want. I would tamper with my routine and fizzle out in confusion because everything seemed unimportant.
Stage 4: Depression
Nothing seemed to have color anymore. I would literally watch my hand as it grasped a number two pencil and tried to solve trigonometric identities. Even though I could remember what my goals were, I had no desire to fulfill them. What was the point? Why did anything matter? These questions brought sorrow. Slowly, sorrow became my companion and it settled in the innermost part of my heart. Like a leech, it drained me of vitality and stole my warmth. So, I would cry. One moment, I seemed to be back to normal, but out of nowhere this heavy feeling would settle on me, and crying was my only release. I wouldn’t even wipe the tears. Letting them draw lines down my cheeks, I would sit in silence. No radio. No talking. No nothing.
Stage 5: Acceptance
Time is the biggest advocate of acceptance. Without it, things are nearly impossible to accomplish. For a reason, God gives us time and calls us to patiently walk through things that take time. After a matter of a couple weeks, my life finally started to gain some color and perspective. I stopped looking inwardly so often and began to see the opportunity before me to shine the light of Christ.
For example, in a PE class that I teach, I no longer saw teaching the children as a chore, but as a God given opportunity to instill God’s love and truth into young hearts. God was faithful and renewed the smile on my face. Even though I wasn’t teaching kids on the side of a Mountain in Yorito, I was still privileged to teach kids on a basketball court in Kyle, Texas.
Purposely, I think people choose not to discuss Missionitis because it seems to steal all the joy that originally comes from a trip. Even so, it is a real thing. Every stage is a battle to walk through. Yet, when the entire process can be brought before the foot of the cross and surrendered to Christ, the joy will only be magnified.
No one talks about Jesus’ resurrection without the pain that came along with it or that was caused by it. To say that tears were not cried and blood was not spilled would rob us of the joy that comes through the story of redemption.
Therefore, praise the Lord for who He was, who He is, and who He is to come. Praise His holy name.
Psalm 30
11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, 12 that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
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