The China chapter of my life began when my husband and I stepped off the plane with our 4-month-old in October of 1995. The autumn season of our new land was still warm enough for the thriving of hearty mosquitoes who made their residence in our two-room apartment. They didn’t move out when we moved in.

The stubborn color of gray refused to leave as well. The gray days of fall, in our city of 8 million people, slowly turned into the gray days of winter. And a gray kind of homesickness settled into my soul.

I plastered on a smile as my husband’s English students squeezed into our living room/bedroom and chattered in Chinese while they passed our baby around. I modified recipes with available ingredients and taught them how to bake in our toaster oven. But my heart ached to be home, where I was known and life felt familiar, beyond just the smell of my grandmother’s banana bread.

In that never-ending winter, I began to doubt that spring would ever come. 

Eventually a bit of green poked its way through the surrounding cement, bringing the hope of spring, and my belly began to grow as well. Our second-born made his grand entrance the following fall. 

But even with the gift of new life through the birth of our son, the season of winter continued to shape my days of cross-cultural adjustment. The label “failure” hung over my head as I concluded that I wasn’t making any significant difference in the world. It became more and more clear to me that my husband was made for China but I wasn’t. 

I feared that this land I had committed my life to would never feel like home. I feared I would always stand out and never fit in.

“Our inward winters take many forms--failure, betrayal, depression, death...Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into them--protected from frostbite by the warm garb of friendship or inner discipline or spiritual guidance--we can learn what they have to teach us. Then we discover once again that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life-giving, even in the most dismaying season of all.” – Parker Palmer 

During that season of my inward winter, I had to die to my expectations of what making a difference meant. I had to acknowledge my fears and let them become my teachers. And I had to trust that God knew what He was doing when He brought not just my husband but me to China. I would come to see Him usher forth new life from death in surprising ways. 

Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)