This is going to be fun, I thought, watching our teacher pull on her leather gloves and then dig into the huge flower pot, preparing to transplant a seedling. As she pulled the plant out of the pot, the sound of roots snapping disrupted my thoughts. It was only the third day of AFM training, and I had been given even more food for thought. That small plant hanging helplessly in her hand with its roots exposed was our illustration about the transition between home and the field, and how vulnerable we will have to be in order to grow again and thrive.

Home and field, I mused. I definitely know where the field is. But where is home for us?
For our two-year-old, that question has a simple answer. He only knows one home, our beautiful place at the AFM Center and our friends here in the U.S. He has no idea that this is only temporary, that we don’t really belong here.

For Cristian and me, the question of home is more complicated. A simple question like “Where are you from?” can require clarification. “Do you mean where I’m coming from right now or my country of origin? My church? My parents’ home? Or my former home?”

As I was sitting in class thinking about how we don’t belong anywhere right now, it occurred to me: Wow! I am that plant! I can’t go back to my old pot. The new one is not ready yet, so we are essentially homeless.

We have grown to love our temporary home and the experiences and people it has brought into our lives. I pray that in a few years’ time when someone asks where we are coming from, we will be able to answer without blinking, “We are from Georgia. That is our home, our heart and our calling.”

Could it be your calling, too? Join us in prayer, in giving, and in sending us on our journey to make this beautiful, unreached country our new home.

• Twitter