Salaam!
It has always been my intention to try to put out a regular newsletter with which to bug all of my wonderful friends and family throughout the world. As those who know me well enough will know, though, my resolutions do not always last very long. Unfortunately. Here’s hoping this one will be different.
So why, if I want to set up a newsletter, am I blogging? Just because. That’s why. :) No, so that I don’t have to keep messing with email lists all the time. And so that I can feel free to post reflections, other than my newsletter on parts of this page. And things like that.
And for those of you who are just browsing around and come across my website, allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Sorge. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a TCK, and an ENTP/INTP. I grew up in South Asia (India and surroundings), having moved there at the age of 2.5, and having returned ”home” to the U.S. at the age of 18. My meaning in life is based on love and service of Jesus Christ. I hold to the principle of Sola Scriptura, and affirm the creeds (Apostles’ and Nicene) as accurate statements of the Bible’s teaching. Ask me for more details about what I believe and why.
So, getting started.
Yes, getting started is the major theme of my life at the moment, but I should start with some background.
Those of you reading this who were in Hebron will be aware that I graduated from Hebron last June, but had to stay back for about 10 days after the end of term in order to do my A-level exams (see link for those who don’t know what those are). Thankfully, I passed with reasonable grades, so I will need to worry that much less about college. The last few weeks were somewhat depressing, as nearly every day someone left whom I would not see again in the foreseen/planned future. The days became lonelier and lonelier, but at least all of the Further Maths students were still there.
And then, after the exam, the chaos stage of my life began. I wanted to put in another link to tell you what the chaos stage was in more technical terms, but I couldn’t find one, so you’ll just have to work off of my definition.
Those working with TCK’s have come up with a reasonably common sense model for how persons experience cultural change. The first stage, stability, is where change starts off. This is where a person is settled in to a place, has a defined niche in the social ecosystem, and has defined roles and responsibilities. This blends into the next stage, leaving. In this stage, a person switches mindsets. The person begins to relinquish roles in others’ lives, to say goodbye to good friends and (sometimes) family, and to pack. This is one of the most important stages, but I am not sure how good I am at it. In theory, one ought to reconcile problems in relationships, affirm their friends — tell them how much they love and care for them, and remind them of how awesome they are, say farewell to people, places, and things, and think and plan for the destination. This stage ends abruptly when a person leaves, and the chaos stage begins. The chaos stage is a stage in which a person is out of control, has little or no structure to their everyday life, and undergo feelings of moderate to extreme stress. This is often accompanied by culture shock, and can involve mood swings, withdrawal into the self, personality changes, and other wonderful things like those. This stage gradually fades into the next two. The first of these is the actual re-entry, which involves more culture shock, and a lot of dealing with grief from the loss of a culture. To put the grief in perspective, one TCK described leaving a culture as “having all of your friends die at once, then moving to a new city.” With email, this is not strictly accurate, but it is pretty blame close. This is the type of thing TCK’s deal with all the time. I personally have moved cultures 6 major times in living memory (excludes stays of less than 6 months and moves before I turned 6). Someone in this stage often feels confused or left out, just because they don’t know what expectations of them are, and they often feel incompetent with what seem to others like basic tasks. This is a time of making new friends, defining new roles, and learning new things. The final stage, into which this fourth one blends, is a new state of stability. This is a state in which a person again has defined roles and a defined niche, has good friends, and knows how to exist and interact. Sure, the person will not forget their previous stations, but they will learn to love the new situation as well as, and in a different way from the old one.
So returning to my story, I moved into the Chaos stage. I returned from Hebron (my boarding school in South India for those of you who don’t know, and can’t be bothered to follow links — shame on you 
) to my parents’ home. Once there, we had a week of hectic visits to the homes of all and sundry to whom we wanted to say goodbye, along with the packing up of our house. Conveniently, my parents are scheduled to be back in the U.S. this year for my first year of college. Having packed, we finally began the flights out.
My real home habitat is the airport and the airplane. There I actually have some clue what I am doing, and my sense of anticipation and my sense of loss are at a happy medium. There are no cultural expectations of me, just a happy sense of formless floating, unconnected. I couldn’t keep it up for too long, note, but even so, it is always a good experience to be flying again.
We flew first to Mumbai (Bombay), and then from there to Turkey. My family and I spent a week there doing the tourist thing. We visited the Haghia Sophia, Topkapı Palace, and the Blue Mosque, we went on a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul. We then went to Cappadocia (pronounced Ka’-pa-do‘-kya), more specifically, a beautiful place called Göreme, and to the ancient city of Ephesus (As in the letter to the Ephesians). On the way we had a backpack stolen with our camera in it. We were assured it is not a common occurence. We went back to Istanbul for a few days, and met up with some friends there, who hosted us for a few days. During that time we visited an Ottoman summer palace, and then left for the airport again.
In a dramatic break with tradition, our family flew into New York, rather than Chicago. This we toured in one day (!), before proceeding to Pennsylvania, to meet up with a friend there, who had agreed to take us to see Washington D.C. and Gettysburg. We also got in a visit to the Hershey factory in Hershey, PA.
Having finished this, we took Amtrak to Chicago, where we visited my paternal grandmother, and my uncles Bob and Bill, and my Aunts Denise and Marcia. Thankfully, our train was 8 hrs. late, rather than the 23 hr. delay we heard about a week later. I enjoyed hanging out with my cousin Aaron, who I had not seen for two years, and introducing him to the joys of the board game Risk.
I then went to Minneapolis, taking my family along, again by Amtrak. Our train was on time, this time. We visited my maternal grandparents, and my 2nd cousins and their family. We also scheduled in a trip to the Mall of America, of which the majority of our time was spent in the theme park — hence the link. We picked up a nice merc (mercury) there in Minneapolis, and happily drove it down to our home base in Evansville, IN. On the way, I visited and toured Wheaton College
We proceeded to take the stuff we had left in storage with friends out of barrels, and set up a house. A week into this project, though, I left for a week-long retreat with other TCKs in Colorado, sponsored by InterAction International. This was enjoyable, less for the information learned than for the friends made. Anna Yawan, I met your friend Rachel Fox there. Just thought you might like to know. Rachel, you already know, so I won’t bother to tell you.
Having enjoyed this experience thoroughly, I returned to Indiana, where I got contact lenses (not wearing glasses for the first time in 16 years is slightly traumatic), and proceeded to finish all my college shopping. Also, my Uncle Joel and Aunt Susan, as well as my cousin Eric came to visit us, and we went to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN, just for the fun of it.
At the end of that week, my family went to Nashville to meet up with my Aunt Susan, and also to meet my Uncle Mark and Aunt Becky, as well as my cousins Jordan and Madison.
We stayed overnight there, but left at an obscene hour of the morning to reach the airport. My Dad and I flew to Houston, TX, where we toured Rice University, and got on an airplane to Los Angeles, CA. We were picked up there on the night of the 22nd by friends of my grandparents, and were dropped off at William Carey International University, where I will be doing my next year of schooling at their Global Year of Insight program.
I arrived, met my roommates, and promptly went to sleep. What with all the time-zone changes (2) and the obscene wake-up hours, I had managed a 22 hour gap between getting up and going to sleep. Fun, fun, fun.
Our orientation started the next night, with a game called Barometer, which was designed to help us get to know each other, and a game of Mafia — Good fun. The next days introduced us to our general life requirements, and our academic requirements. We then went on a camping trip for the weekend. This was very enjoyable, in that I got to know my 10 classmates a bit better. We then returned to campus for our first week of classes, which were quite challenging (70-100 pages of reading per day, plus Bible Study, study questions, and 2 hour discussion sessions) but also enjoyable, in an intellectually overwhelming way.
Yeah, so here I am. My first saturday on campus. And what do I do? I sit here and create a blog and write to my wonderful friends. Now who says I don’t love you guys? 
Prayer Requests
Please pray for me as I attempt to adjust to
Life in the states
Life in Pasadena
INSIGHT Workload
New roommates, classmates
and many other things which are less monumental
all at the same time.
Please pray for my younger brother Joshua (9) as he adjusts to going to school for the first time (he was homeschooled through 3rd grade) this year in an unfamiliar culture. He seems to be doing very well.
Pray that I will find a job here in Pasadena– I haven’t been able to get one up to this point because of living in India. I received one job offer, but due to technical difficulties, I don’t know whether that offer will still be open for me, or whether I will have to start looking for another one. Arre ya!
Pray for guidance for me over the course of this year as I try to decide where to go for the rest of my time in College.
Pray for my parents, as they also are adjusting to the experience that is life in the USA. Pray that they will be able to develop a reasonable routine.
Pray for the Islands, where I grew up. A man we call William there was arrested and imprisoned there, most likely for sharing his faith there. The Islands are a small country in South Asia which are 100% muslim by law. Those who do not choose to follow Islam do so at risk of life and limb. Unfortunately this is mostly disregarded by or unknown to the many tourists who vacation and visit there, providing the majority of the country’s GDP.
