Before I left for my semester abroad, everyone seemed to be asking me the same question: "are you scared?" And I never knew how to respond. I was certainly anxious and very excited, but fear wasn't exactly on my list of stirring emotions at the time. I did not fear living on my own, for I had already mastered that for a year and a half, nor was I afraid of an Arab culture so similar to my own Middle Eastern background. I didn't understand why I was supposed to fear a group of people, just because they lived on the opposite side of the world.
The second most frequently asked question I received was: "why?" Everyone, and literally their mother, asked me over and over why I was choosing to live so far away from home for such a long time. "Is this going to help you get into graduate school?" "Does it look good on your resume?" "Will this help you get a job?" Without a pragmatic reason as to why I was leaving the country for five months, I seemed to be "wasting my time," as some people put it. And for a little while, I wasn't exactly sure why I was going abroad either-- should I focus solely on shaping my career right now? Am I really getting anything out of this experience? And I started doubting the whole thing, and thinking maybe it was a poor decision.
And now, five months later, after living through an experience like none other, I'm trying to make sense of my time spent abroad to figure out what I got out of it exactly. And aside from three suitcases and tons of souvenirs, I came back to the United States with something else; a fresh sense of compassion. A good friend of mine once told me that the world would achieve peace when people begin to look at humanity through God's eyes, and a famous Hillsong lyric says, "Break my hear from what breaks Yours." And after traveling to the other side of the world and experiencing different people, different cultures, and different ways of life, I realized that I would never have fully understood what my friend meant, or what Hillsong preached about in their music without going abroad. I've always felt like poverty, world hunger, and war were such remote situations; they were third world problems that people in "those" countries have to worry about. But with each place I explored, I marveled at the number of times the Hillsong lyric rang through my mind, "Break my hear from what breaks Yours." And my heart was broken each time I walked through the slums of India or witnessed piercing bullet holes in public squares across war torn Lebanon, or passed by a refugee settlement in Jordan. I felt like there was nothing I could do except offer up a quick prayer after I looked into the pained eyes of a young child asking for money or seeing half of a building torn apart into a pile of rubble.
But there is so much good to see across the world as well. Every soul I encountered was eager to help, eager to lend a smile, and eager to show off how beautiful his country was. And I was constantly reminded of the question, "are you scared?" But the more people I met, the more I realized that I have nothing to be afraid of. The Saudi Arabian man I met at an airport telling me about his new business was no more fearful to me than the Syrian gentleman telling me about his sister's wedding, and how sorry he was to see his country being torn apart. There was no fear in learning about other people and hearing their stories about where they came from and where they're going.
And that's the first way compassion is built up: awareness. I stepped away from my safe haven of family, friends, and a strong church community, and stepped into a whole different world where I was often uncomfortable. And to answer all those questions I was asked before leaving, I would say that there should be no fear in living among other members of humanity; people are not to be feared, it is often their situations that are fearful. And my reason for going abroad was to get a small taste of those fearful situations, to understand what our brothers and sisters in "those" countries go through, and to learn how to extend a heart of love to those who were designed by the same Hands as me.
The second most frequently asked question I received was: "why?" Everyone, and literally their mother, asked me over and over why I was choosing to live so far away from home for such a long time. "Is this going to help you get into graduate school?" "Does it look good on your resume?" "Will this help you get a job?" Without a pragmatic reason as to why I was leaving the country for five months, I seemed to be "wasting my time," as some people put it. And for a little while, I wasn't exactly sure why I was going abroad either-- should I focus solely on shaping my career right now? Am I really getting anything out of this experience? And I started doubting the whole thing, and thinking maybe it was a poor decision.
And now, five months later, after living through an experience like none other, I'm trying to make sense of my time spent abroad to figure out what I got out of it exactly. And aside from three suitcases and tons of souvenirs, I came back to the United States with something else; a fresh sense of compassion. A good friend of mine once told me that the world would achieve peace when people begin to look at humanity through God's eyes, and a famous Hillsong lyric says, "Break my hear from what breaks Yours." And after traveling to the other side of the world and experiencing different people, different cultures, and different ways of life, I realized that I would never have fully understood what my friend meant, or what Hillsong preached about in their music without going abroad. I've always felt like poverty, world hunger, and war were such remote situations; they were third world problems that people in "those" countries have to worry about. But with each place I explored, I marveled at the number of times the Hillsong lyric rang through my mind, "Break my hear from what breaks Yours." And my heart was broken each time I walked through the slums of India or witnessed piercing bullet holes in public squares across war torn Lebanon, or passed by a refugee settlement in Jordan. I felt like there was nothing I could do except offer up a quick prayer after I looked into the pained eyes of a young child asking for money or seeing half of a building torn apart into a pile of rubble.
But there is so much good to see across the world as well. Every soul I encountered was eager to help, eager to lend a smile, and eager to show off how beautiful his country was. And I was constantly reminded of the question, "are you scared?" But the more people I met, the more I realized that I have nothing to be afraid of. The Saudi Arabian man I met at an airport telling me about his new business was no more fearful to me than the Syrian gentleman telling me about his sister's wedding, and how sorry he was to see his country being torn apart. There was no fear in learning about other people and hearing their stories about where they came from and where they're going.
And that's the first way compassion is built up: awareness. I stepped away from my safe haven of family, friends, and a strong church community, and stepped into a whole different world where I was often uncomfortable. And to answer all those questions I was asked before leaving, I would say that there should be no fear in living among other members of humanity; people are not to be feared, it is often their situations that are fearful. And my reason for going abroad was to get a small taste of those fearful situations, to understand what our brothers and sisters in "those" countries go through, and to learn how to extend a heart of love to those who were designed by the same Hands as me.
