SINGing a New Song: Home is a story...your story.

I have been teaching the guys on my CARE team at least one American saying per week, and I realized how many sayings we have about "home." Home is where the heart is, There's no place like home, I'll be home for Christmas [fingers crossed] and so on...not to even mention the songs written about home. And for the proverbial icing on the cake, for one of our CARE projects, we are working with an nonprofit organization called HOME (Humanitarian Organization for Migrant Economies).

The identity we take in relationship to our "home" is certainly more complex than Phil Phillips' one hit wonder, "Home" (Anne & David Comer, that pop culture reference is for you two #Idolgroupies). When we say "Home is where the heart is," does that imply that we have only one place we call home, a single place for our heart to be tied to? Every city or house or season is just that, a plain old city, house, or season until you paint life into it by investing a piece of your heart in it, and in turn allow the place to become part of who you are. But doesn't it seem like a crossroad sometimes when we face knocking on the door of a new home? I am reminded that home is not really confined to earthly measures, and really, we are all migrants and nomads, some in different seasons of life or in different places geographically but we are all the products of loving and being loved by different cities, communities, family members, etc.

We are broken and weary travelers, and it is not a house or a town or a city alone that heals us, it is the promise of an eternal home where our spirits belong, with a loving Father in heaven. It is the promise of community for our temporary homes here on earth. We probably all know that deep inside, but when we think of home, we sometimes long for the places we used to know-familiarity feels like home to us. But what I have learned after my first few weeks in Sing is that it is not familiarity necessarily that defines home, home is where we get to be a part of a place, a people, a community that invited you into its story, and in turn, it becomes such a significant part of yours.

Here is a snapshot of what my home in Singapore looks like so far:

Top left: Marina Bay downtown Singapore. Middle&Bottom left: The
"Sarah Comer" pose enacted by my sweet LifeGroup members. Top
right: My CARE family goofing off on the first day in our new office! Middle
right: Botanical Gardens in the middle of the city...so beautiful (more pictures
to come!) Bottom right: My cousin Kathryn (and Ed-who took the picture)
are such a HUGE part of how much I love this city! They have been the most WONDERFUL "relocation specialists!" I am so lucky!