Matt and Kristin in the Philippines

It's a dark gray Monday in Chicago. I'm wearing long sleeves. What happened to August? It's still August in the Philippines. It's always August there.

Our friends at McCormick have been wonderfully welcoming and it has been great to be back and see old friends and meet new people. We have many friends here who have done the YAV program or similar mission service before, and they have been deep wells of understanding who make it easier to return to these familiar settings.

Some of them ask "How are you doing?" with voices full of concern. They are right to be concerned. We've been warned that returning to your home culture after a year abroad is typically more difficult emotionally than entering a new culture. Being an American in the Philippines can be difficult, but how much more strange to return to the U.S. and discover we are not quite the Americans we were before? We have a friend who was a YAV several years ago, and upon her return spent several days sitting in her closet.

But so far the strangest thing is the lack of shock. We haven't found ourselves in the closet yet. Maybe that comes later, or maybe it doesn't come at all for us this time. During our orientation nearly a year ago our facilitator spoke of how the term "Culture Shock" can be misleading. It is similar to the medical state of shock because it's debilitating, but it's not like an electric shock that happens all at once. She suggested calling it "Culture Cancer" since it sneaks up on you and has no definite individual causes or symptoms.

Mostly I'm feeling really good these days. It's exciting to reconnect with people. Jet lag had me up in the middle of the night our first few days back, and so I was able to watch the original Star Wars Trilogy, the most precious piece of nostalgia from my childhood (with the possible exception of the Chronicles of Narnia books, which I'm rereading for the hundredth time now). After a year of going without real ice cream, or cereal with real milk, or hot showers, I now experience all three daily, and it feels wonderful. Our apartment is slowly, slowly gaining a sense of order and boxes are gradually emptied and cleared away. Many lists are made and many items have already been crossed off.

Because we are students at McCormick and that is where the YAV orientation is held, we were able to meet many of the next group of young adults who will be serving in the Philippines next year. It is exciting to see these courageous people and to know something about the journey they are beginning.

We are saturated with stories and explanations that are yet untold, and occasionally in casual conversations we find ourselves rambling on about the Philippines. Fortunately many people are patient and even genuinely interested. We've been told that one of the greatest frustrations for returning YAVs is that some people will ask "How was your year abroad?" but not really be interested in the answer, which could take anywhere from several minutes to several days to convey.

It is somewhat shocking to return to an enormous apartment (two large bedrooms and a living room for only two people!)and find that we own many things we don't really need, and even things which we might need we seem to own too many of, or they're so large. Two weeks ago we could live comfortably out of a backpack, and now we have closets and dressers and bookshelves and boxes of "knickknacks." But the real shock is that we can reenter this life of abundance without blinking more than twice. We remember how to drive cars, we go to the store and spend inconceivable amounts of money on even more stuff (and extra ice cream), and we stay an extra minute in the hot shower, and none of it really "hits" me.

So maybe there's a closet with my name on it waiting for me, but for now I have errands to run. Need to get new pegs for the bookshelf, buy some notebooks so we can start taking our classes, and pens, and milk, and matches.

So good morning and God bless you, whichever side of the world you're on.