My sending organization once interviewed me about my job teaching abroad. The young video guy asked – “What are your thoughts on short-term versus long-term service?”

How long do I have? I asked jokingly. We had already chatted about his various service trips to three different countries. He spoke earnestly about what he’d learned on his winter breaks. 

My time in Asia began before he was born. Just a fact. Not a positive or a negative. Just numbers. 

Corrie ten Boom once said she held things loosely because it was painful when God pried her hands off. I always took that to mean tangible things; books, clothes, gifts. 

Maybe that’s what she was focusing on. But I think I can add long-held views. 

I am biased, I tell my interviewer. I’ve spent a good part of my life in Asia. I’ve seen the value and joy in getting to know a place, investing in language and becoming part of a faculty and a neighborhood. Culture workshops cannot do what sharing a crisis or challenge or celebration with your local friends brings to your doorstep. It’s a special feeling to have lunch with seniors you had as freshmen. Or to swap ex-pat experiences with a Chinese colleague who has just returned from studying in the west. It has been rewarding to hear “you returned!” “We’re not just part of your research.” It’s a humbling gift to chat with the former questioning grad student who now leads Bible studies. 

I don’t want to be blinded by my bias. There’s no need to expound on how transportation and communication have changed in my lifetime alone. Technology has made so much possible with fewer time restrictions. Flying, talking, writing – it’s all within our reach. My videographer could go easily across the world and back on his winter break. The list of opportunities is long. Even in my long-term jobs, there have been times substitute teaching, and responding to an emergency. God can use a minute or a decade. May we all one day be able to look back and say with Moses, “Oh, Lord God, you have only begun to show your servant thy greatness.”