The Annual Farewell Potluck

Later this month, my international church will host its annual Farewell Potluck. As described in the name, church members bring dishes to share as we acknowledge the folks who are leaving Egypt and moving onward to the next place that God has prepared. I claim it as an occasion worthy of baking some cookies with the precious chocolate chips I have stored in my freezer. A comfort dessert as good as any other as we say our goodbyes.

This year will mark my fourth attendance at this annual gathering. And each year, as I sit in the crowd with my plate of food on my lap, listening to families share the news of what they’re doing next, I can’t help but wonder when I’ll be up at the front of the courtyard, holding the microphone and sharing with the congregation where I’m headed off to. It definitely feels more like a when than an if.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had friends leave Cairo every year in the weeks that follow the potluck. Maybe it’s because the courtyard we gather in is only a rented facility. Or maybe it’s because my passport isn’t the teal color of the residents in this country.

Whatever the reason (or multitude of reasons), I carry the weight of knowing the door to other places or opportunities is cracked open. And I carry the weight of knowing that the door is open for others too.

We must pay both the individual and the communal cost of the sliver of light that sneaks in through that cracked door.

The cost of hearing the voice that tugs at the back of my mind all the time. The voice that pesters me with questions. When will it be time to leave? Am I still called to be here? How do I know? In my years as an expat, a season has not yet come when the consideration of staying or leaving doesn’t exist. Sometimes the voice is quite easily hushed, but at other times, it persists like a nagging itch. There is no default path forward to settle on.

While I originally thought that faithfulness demonstrated itself in staying in the place of your original calling for decades, I’ve come to the conclusion that the journey is not so simple. We don’t only take one step of faithfulness in this life.

Instead, potential futures cloud my peripheries. And I did not know just how exhausting it could be to look straight ahead. Until I hear news that a friend is leaving Egypt. Or a coworker is leaving my organization. Or that person at church who served as a cornerstone for years is pivoting somewhere new.

I must pay the toll for their transitions as well.

I expect the losses that come from my own decisions of transition, but I don’t always expect the ones that arise from circumstances outside of my control. The loss born out of others faithfully responding to the Lord’s nudges.

My heart splits into strands threaded all over the globe. Not just in the US and Egypt but in all the places that friends have moved or returned to: Cambodia, the UK, Uganda.

There’s no turning back from this truth. Whether I stay here or move somewhere new or return to my passport country (maybe especially if I return to my passport country), the number of people I miss will only grow.

The beauty and grief of living a cross-cultural life intertwine like a vine growing up the side of a house.

So, as I prepare to sit in the church courtyard for this year’s Farewell Potluck, I brace myself. I brace myself for the questions I will start asking myself and for the new people that I will begin to miss.

But just as this celebration is worth the chocolate chips from my freezer, I have decided that this transitional life is worth all of its constant questions and painful longings. The Lord will redeem all of its heartaches as he weaves a beautiful tapestry together.

What constant questions and painful longings do you carry as you live an international life?