Home and Stuff - Caleb

I should preface this by saying that a lot of what I'm writing about hasn't come out of the fast as much as it has been something that's been on my mind for a while now. I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly to put into this, so I apologize if it seems disoriented or if it seems like there's something missing.

So I'm pretty sure everyone in the community group knows by now that I grew up in Taiwan. I moved when I was only a few months old, and except Kindergarten, 5th grade, 10th grade, and a few summers, spent every year there for a total of about fifteen years. While I was there, I went to American school and made a lot of friends who spoke Chinese, meaning I never actually had to speak Chinese myself and kind of went into autopilot in my beginner Chinese classes (I know, I'm pathetic). I feel so blessed to have grown up there and all of the experiences that came with it and I definitely wouldn't trade it for another.

That's the long story short. Jump to, I arrive at Gordon my Freshmen year. I go through a transitional funk for my first semester or so but by Sophomore year, I had developed enough of an identity at Gordon that I could explain to people who I was. I'm a Comm Arts Major, I do film stuff, I get involved with Theatre. There's not as much awkwardness in talking about my major and choice of work as there can be when the first thing I have to do is explain to someone that I grew up in Taiwan and all that entails. So while I still found a lot of my identity in having grown up overseas and being a TCK (Third Culture Kid - a person who was raised in culture different than their parents) I was able to relate more immediately to the people around me. 

Over the summer and into my Junior year, I got even more comfortable in my surroundings and it actually got a lot easier to talk about being "from Taiwan". Everything just began to feel a little more natural. I became a Christian somewhere in the middle of this last April and was attending Netcast pretty frequently. Over the summer I had an internship with the mission my parents were part of and I felt even more connected with my past than I had before.

For my most recent winter break, I went back to Taiwan for three weeks. I got to see pretty much my whole family again, my brother and his family who I hadn't really seen in three years, my sister, my parents. I got to eat a lot of the food that I really loved and missed a lot here in the States and got to enjoy the prices as well (a full meal and a drink for $2, seriously, it's the best). I went back to my old high school and saw my old dorm parents, Uncle Steve and Aunt Penny, who had basically raised me for my Junior and Senior year and who I love very dearly. I even presented one of my short films to my teacher who had been kind of responsible for me getting into film in the first place.

And while, it was good to see the sights, eat the food, enjoy the weather that I had grown up with, I couldn't seem to shake the overwhelming feeling that I had become a stranger in a place that I had considered home for my entire life. For 21 years, I found a large part of my identity in Taiwan, and quite frankly, that's just not true anymore. Honestly, I felt like a tourist a lot of the times. Walking around my old high school was one of the most unsettling things I've experienced and I don't really have a desire to go back to Taiwan which is incredibly odd for me to admit. I'm the most homeless that I've been in my entire life and honestly, and it's both an incredibly hard but also very freeing time for it to hit.

So where do I find my home? To some extent, it's the routine and places that I begin to habit after having been here for a while. Walking around campus, coffee shops, the Gordon Comm Arts Lab, things like that. But more importantly, it's the people and the relationships I've made in the last two and half years. The fact that I have friends that I can be completely honest about who I am creates a sense of home for me more than any place ever will and I think part of me didn't want to admit that before. Not because I don't love and appreciate the people that I have in my life, but because I wanted to believe that there would always be some place that I could go back to and be at peace because I was "home". I don't know if I'll ever feel that way. 'Home' is kind of like moments throughout my day where I'm able to connect with others in an honest way. It's weird and hard to explain and not exactly a constant in my life which can be frustrating and is going to be something that takes me a while to figure out.

The question that comes out of all of this for me then is "Where SHOULD I find my home?" The good Sunday school answer that I feel like I should be able to say is with God and Heaven, but I've found it incredibly hard to find solace in that answer. Mainly because of how much I am currently struggling with my faith and belief in God at the moment. Matt issued out challenge a the beginning of the year to give Netcast and God one year where you just give yourself over to Him, and that if at the end of a year you still don't feel connected to God or that you're "distant" in your relationship... well, I'll figure out what happens when and if I get there. 

I'll try to end this on a little bit of a lighter note. I remember when I first started coming to the community more regularly last year, I felt kind of distant and an outsider for a while. I told myself I needed to give it some more time and so, I did. This last Monday, as we were wrapping up, just sitting and chatting for a little bit, I had one of those moments that felt kind of like home. It just felt really comfortable to be there with everyone. The openness and honesty that our community group has is a really encouraging part of my life and I'm thankful to be a part of it.