Choosing Presence Over Pictures

I remember going on a short-term trip to Central America when I was still in high school. Our team of young people carried little disposable cameras, each able to capture 24 or 36 pictures. We would take silly pictures of new fruit, fun drinks, adorable children, and ministry opportunities with clowns and puppets.

These cameras and films would need to be developed at a photo center when we arrived back home. Even though it would take a few weeks for the pictures to return, the anticipation was worth the wait. The photos held memories and moments that we all wanted to remember forever. I still have a small photo album full of hazy highlights from those disposable cameras.

Later as an adult, I would return overseas, not on a trip but as a full-time worker. I returned with a phone capable of taking hundreds of clear, beautiful pictures. These pictures were immediately accessible and easy to put on social media to show friends, family, and supporters a small glimpse of life on the other side of the world.

Although in this new context, something about snapping a picture felt different because I wasn’t there on a trip. I was there to live real life. I didn’t want to be the foreigner taking pictures all the time. I wanted to be the neighbor, friend, and co-worker who could be in the moment without needing to capture it all to send back home.

I wrestled with this tension quite often in my time overseas. I wanted to take pictures of everything! Life was new, fun, exciting, adventurous, interesting, beautiful, sad, hard, and amazing all at the same time. Yet, life was also real, normal, and simple.

Living in the tension, I needed some guidelines and tips for sharing moments while living and working overseas.

I wanted the freedom to keep my phone in my purse and just be present in my current season and place without feeling like I was missing out if I didn’t capture it all.

One of those moments came in a village that was surrounded by desert sands and palm trees. The village was home to a small group of believers. I’d become good friends with the pastor and his wife who were hosting the very first Christian wedding to be held in their church. They asked me to come even though I didn’t know the bride and groom.

Because of the busyness of the wedding and the number of people in attendance, I didn’t get a chance to talk with the pastor’s wife. As we were pulling away from the church, I looked back behind me and there was the pastor’s wife, running behind the truck. I told the driver to stop so I could get out to talk with my lively, full-of-laughter friend. As we chatted outside the truck, talking about her hair, the wedding, her baby, and when I’d come back to see them, I really, really wanted to take a picture.

I wanted to remember the moment of the two of us talking and laughing in French together. Encouragement, friendship, an inside joke—I wanted a picture to remember it all. But I held back.

While I’d taken a few pictures in the church during the wedding when everyone else had their phones out, it didn’t feel right in the midst of our laughter. It’s the more real moments, the moments of conversation and connection where I really want to take a picture but often choose to stay in the moment, leaving my phone tucked away.

Another such moment happened when the gas tank for my stove ran out. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and the gas just stopped. The gas can for the stove was located on the outside of the house in a locked cement compartment for which the guard had the key.

I sent him a text, asking him to come home so he could change out the gas tank. When he arrived, I was joking with him that he needed to hurry because I was in the middle of cooking. “Issa! I need my stove!” I said in French. He laughed, knowing I was joking with him. It was another moment when I wanted to take a picture but didn’t grab my phone.

So many moments like this happen every day for global workers. They won’t be on our Facebook or our Instagram. Even if you do see some pictures, they can’t possibly show all the details of the moments as we experience them.

To really live, engage, and laugh with friends, we must leave the phones tucked away. We don’t take pictures every day or pull our phones out with each interaction.

We hide the moments away in our hearts to build on the next time we see that person.

Truly, I will never forget my friend running after the truck to make sure that she and I had a chance to see each other. It’s a real-life moment imprinted on the film in my heart forever.

Are there times you want to take a picture but choose to leave your phone in your purse? How do you hold onto these memories?