americans going back to america

When I first moved to New Jersey, I plugged into my community - church, school, volunteerism, neighbors, recreational teams - but it was always with this knowledge that it wasn't my home and I probably wouldn't stay ... I had no family to keep me.  On top of that, the friends I was making were coming and going as well - doing the same work as I with the same relatively short term commitments.

And then I realized at some point that I could live like that year after year and never fully plug in - believing I was about to leave.  But I didn't know my future, and I realized the mistake in thinking like this.  I was already a part of many things, but it was still an important change in my thinking.  Nothing is permanent.  The future isn't known.  Now is the time.

Living here, I see a similar problem.  I am the one staying - but I meet many foreigners that are coming and going - an international community of people here on assignment for two or four years, sometimes less, sometimes more.  I am definitely not plugged into my community like I was in America.  Church is filled with a whole bunch of transients.  Even the minister.

But I still attend the chapel.  Mostly for holidays, barbecues, and movie nights.  Today I went to for a goodbye barbecue/graduation party.  My friend Kristen and her family are from Illinois and have lived here for seven years.  We worked together at my school the first year together.  She quit after a terrible year - she had been an elementary school teacher in the States, but couldn't adjust to the education style.  Kristin and I kept in contact through church, Bible study, and coffee a few times a year.  She had many other roles to fulfill and had since thrived here in Turkey, along with her husband and two children.  I was never quite clear what her husband was doing - he was working in the education system as well, sponsored by a foreign country and trying to instill some Western techniques into teaching institutions.

They also made up the entire worship team at church.  Enoch on piano, their daughter on guitar, their son on drums, and Kristin the chapel assistant running the church from the back row.

For many reasons, they are leaving this year.  We brought gold and pinned it on Sydney, their daughter, as a graduation gift and a Turkish token...literally.  They were here a long time, and had invested in a lot - but now they are going, probably not to come back.