Culture Shock

If I could describe my overall experience of the last month it has been one of culture shock. For the last three to five weeks I have been struggling. I have been dealing a sincere amount of confusion and depression and it has only been in the last week or so that I've started to notice why.

As someone who has traveled a bit I thought moving to a new country would be relatively easy. Obviously there would be some major cultural differences, a new language barrier, and the whole adjusting to actually living abroad. I thought I had in myself what I needed to do this successfully with little difficulty. Boy, was I wrong.

In the last three and a half months I have learned more about myself than I ever cared to know and frankly I don't like most of it. Most of you know I'm a pretty optimistic guy who likes to have fun and always enjoys a good laugh. And you'd be right to say that because I do. However, I am learning that I am an eternal optimist. Even when I feel like the building is collapsing on top of me (which somewhat accurately describes how I've felt since about February) I could tell you with ease everything I enjoyed about the process of being crushed to death (hyperbole intended). Though this is an asset most of the time when I have some legitimate problems that need to be addressed I tend to overlook them, and then do a bajillion things to try and cover up how the problems make me feel. All of which end up making it worse and usually end up hurting people around me. What I've found is that, though I try to be an honest person, I lie to myself profusely and unapologetically.

So you can imagine that I haven't been coping with culture shock very well. If you don't know much about it a basic google search can give you the basics, and really that's all I know. Culture shock is pretty common for expats, and happens more or less to everyone when they live outside of their culture. The main idea is that there is a honeymoon period where everything is great then there is a realization that things are difficult, then there is a homesickness combined with loneliness and depression and then there is no escape until you die. Just kidding, after the period of difficulty you learn to adjust and cope with life in new surroundings. Here is a great visualization of what culture shock can be like:

Though I think I'm at the confronting deeper cultural/personal issues I don't really know. I do know that some days are better than others. And that my mind is regularly occupied with depressing thoughts. The hardest part is that I genuinely find it difficult to care about fighting it. And yet, the optimist in me finds the whole process fascinating.

Needless to say life is very confusing at the moment and I would appreciate your prayers. Here are some specific prayer requests:

1.) That I would be able to work through this depression in such a way that nothing is rushed and that I could really grow and learn through it.

2.) That I could feel the love of the Father on a daily basis. I really struggle with accepting the love of others, and I'm finding that I don't accept the love of the Father despite obvious evidence to the contrary.

3.) I'm going home for Christmas. During my stay in Ohio I will be road tripping it down to Florida to help Micah and his family move to Jacksonville. Pray for safe travels as I will be doing a lot of it this December.

Thank you all for your continuous love and support.