Deferral

Langston Hughes asked:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Twenty years ago, straight out of college, I took a job teaching conversational English in Japan for a year. If you had told me when I returned home that it would be twenty years before I would leave North America again, I would have been surprised and disappointed. After living in and exploring a far corner of the globe, I was ready for more. I had decided that this was who I was. But then life happened: marriage, first real teaching job, car payments, home, mortgage, church commitments, photography career, credit card payments.

By all measures, I had every reason to be content with my life. Wonderful wife, great kids, good health, good job. In fact, I loved my teaching job in Chicago. But sixteen years is an awfully long time to teach eleven-year-olds how to divide fractions by flipping the second fraction and multiplying top times top, bottom times bottom. Professionally, I felt I was starting to plateau. I was getting antsy and suffering from a large-scale case of cabin fever. I felt that it was time to mix it up and take on some new challenges. I was looking for some dragons to slay.

In the fall of 2008, I started snooping around the internet to see what overseas teaching opportunities were out there. Then, in about October I started to get more systematic in my efforts. I started sending out resumes and cover letters. When I started to hear back from a couple of the schools expressing interested, I let my wife know what I was up to.

On Thursday, December 18, during my lunch hour I sent out my 65^th cover letter and resume to International Christian School in Hong Kong. At 7:00 that night I got a call from Donna in human resources. We talked for an hour. That was followed a week later with a two-hour phone interview with the principal. Julie and I were offered a middle school teaching position and a part-time nursing position.

I was moving my family to China for the next two years.

A few months before our departure, I stopped by to see David –a friend of mine from church- at his office. He introduced me to one of his clients who was on the way out the door. David explained that my wife and I were going to the mission field to serve in China for two years. This wasn’t the first time I had heard one of my more earnest church friends put this spin on our imminent departure. I understood the inclination since we were going to work in a Christian school, but his depiction still made me uncomfortable. It ascribed to me motives that were all-together too selfless.

When people in The States or in Hong Kong asked me why my wife and I why were moving our family half way around the world, I found it easiest to explain that we wanted to give our daughters a long-term international experience. Which was true –in part.

The truth was, I was trying to satiate my incurable wanderlust.

Was it fair or reasonable for a guy who had been blessed with so much to ask for even more out of life? There was a definite undercurrent of self-indulgence to the whole endeavor. But how do I begin to explain that to a friend who is trying to ascribe to me noble intentions or to an acquaintance who thinks that I am willing to make tremendous sacrifices for my daughters’ betterment?

Better to just let them think that I am more selfless than I really am.