Kopie von RE-ENTRY: THE BIG SCARY WORD AND ALL THAT COMES WITH IT

I don’t know how many times you’ve heard this word re-entry from your parents, but I only understood what re-entry really meant after being several years back in Switzerland. I wanna explain to you how it was for me moving from one continent to another for good. And that is what re-entry really is: moving from the place that you have called home for an amount of time to a new place, that you might have already been for a short time but have no roots yet. If I think about it, the term of “entry” actually would fit more, since it surely doesn’t feel like you know this place that now is supposed to become your new home…

I remember very well the first time my parents told me that in one year we would be moving from the capital of Chad(central Africa) called N’Djaména to Switzerland for good. I was 9 years old and my world seemed to fall apart. I didn’t understand why I had to leave to a new country I barely knew, when I loved this place in Africa, which was home for me. As a child I just thought how can life be so unfair, that my sister had been allowed to grow up here in Chad until she was 18 and I now had to leave, only having spent 10 years of my life in Africa…

So a year later I said goodbye to all my friends knowing that I might never see them again. As we arrived in Switzerland, I literally felt the Africa inside of me as I got malaria just as my new schoolyear started. It wasn’t dangerous since I had got it many times in Africa before, and my parents had all the medication I needed, so I got better soon. It’s just funny that even leaving the continent I couldn’t get rid of the evil mosquito’s venom inside of, nor the difficulties of having grown up in Africa. And so not only mentally but also a physical part of Africa was and will always be in me. Even being now in Switzerland for almost 9 years my heart beats faster every time I hear African music or I’m super excited if I meet someone who was in the same situation as me and wanna know their whole story. It even goes so far as that I can consider my cat, Shaddow that we brought with us from Chad as one of my best friends cause he went with me through it all!

The first couple of months I found friends quite fast, but also noticed that these friends were very different than me and most of them didn’t have any kind of interest hearing about my past. That was a struggle for me since growing up in Chad was the only thing I knew. I was blessed to have one friend that was curious about where I came from and my experience, and she became my best friend. I learnt that I shouldn’t expect Swiss people to be deeply interested in where I’ve been or what I’ve done because this only leads to disappointment.

But I also learned that finding someone to talk about your past with can be so valuable. That is why it is so easy as a TCK to bond with another, TCK even if you’ve grown up in two totally different countries. I respect each and everyone of you sharing your story in this blog, because it’s not easy to talk about your past when there have been difficult times as well. But it is the difficult times in life that made me realize how little I have things in control and that I am completely depended on God. Just like a diamond needs sharpening, God wants to use these moments to turn us into children that are reflecting his glory.