It is a strange sensation, returning home after a travel experience.

Yesterday I went through the motions, willing my body to adjust to its regular timezone and 7 hour jump. My children were gracious, having been away themselves, and we all took the day slowly. Meals were simple, naps were welcomed, and requests to read stories (aka sit together on the couch) were granted freely.

My main concern with traveling was being away from my family. My son and I have never been separated for that long, and it’s been a while since I was away from the girls for any length of time. Thankfully, with the help of a crew of true champions (Daddy, Grandparents), each one of them did great (a true testimony of many of you praying.)

But even as our home wrapped me in the wide comfort of American familiarity and the glory of a having bathroom I could a.) find easily and b.) not have to pay for returned, I felt somehow split between physical locations.

Mission trips have a way of doing that. They marry new experience with eternal purpose. It’s an intoxicating combination.

Upon return, you realize you aren’t who you were when you left just a week or so ago. The mold of your life feels tight in some places and looser in others, as though God has taken hold and stretched the reach of your arms, the speed of your step, the capacity of your heart.

It’s not that home doesn’t fit. It’s that you’ve grown in your ability to interact with it. You have new ideas. Questions. A broader sense of courage for what you are capable of doing.

Paris is a beautiful city in every sense: architecturally, aesthetically, gastronomically. And ever since my college days of working at Paris Flea Market in Edina (a shop where the owner imported French antiques and other goods), I have always wanted to go there.  But the work of Envision in that city is what reached into my heart. They function as a true family. They apprentice residents and interns. They shepherd short-term teams. They serve and encourage their local churches. They build community for new friends.

They are teaching love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control as it pertains to their context in the city of Paris, allowing it to influence their humanity and daily interactions. Or in the words of one of the full-time international workers living there, they are introducing people to the family of God before introducing them to God himself.

It’s relief work in the familiar sense of recognizing a need and filling it – but instead of that need being food, shelter, or clothing, it runs on the emotional wavelength. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs outlines that after our basic needs (physiological, security) are met, we seek after our psychological needs: friendship, intimacy, family.

This is the mission of connection. It is friendship. It is availability. It is asking hard questions and really, truly listening for the answers. It is recognizing difference and respecting it. It is humbly sharing what we own – stories of brokenness, hurt, exhaustion, shame, and fear, and how Jesus speaks into those places, restoring us to wholeness.

Most importantly, it’s an effort that is translatable anywhere we live. This level of the human condition needs tending at every level of society: within our families, within our friendships, in our social media networks, at the workplace, in sports teams, even at the checkout line at the grocery store.

In John 13, Jesus taught his friends a new concept, one that probably seemed a little strange the first time they heard it:

³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

For all it’s overuse as a catchphrase, to love and be loved will always be a central need, as basic a fact as that the Eiffel tower is in France. And realizing that meeting that need in others is equally as important as any of my daily pursuits is a gift I will never forget receiving on this trip.