If you’ve ever experienced moving countries, provinces, or even cities, the feeling of homesickness may be familiar to you. Nostalgia for distant memories, longing for forgotten smells, and cravings for missed flavours may plague you on a monthly, or even daily basis. If you’ve ever experienced the loss of a place you once called home, the process of accepting a new place as your second home, or even the necessity of leaving behind your one and only home, this feeling of homesickness may go a little deeper than nostalgia and cravings. As someone who has grown up with many homes, I understand this deep-rooted homesickness. You become sick, not just for one home, but for all homes ever had. Uprooting yourself can feel identity-stripping and make things even more complicated when you finally go back to your home. For me, home has always been somewhat of a sensitive topic because I never really understood what could truly classify as “home.”
There is a Welsh word that is used to describe the feeling of homesickness you get when you grieve for a home you can never return to, a home that maybe never was at all. The word is “hiraeth.” This word is unique, not just because it describes a feeling that, to many, doesn’t make sense to have in the first place, but because it describes a feeling that many don’t even realize they have. You can get hiraeth from moving away from a place you know you can never go back to. Or from leaving a place that is no longer safe to enjoy. Or from being uprooted from a home due to war or violence. Or even from letting go of the hope of a home you can never have. There are hundreds of things that can cause the feeling of hiraeth, and many go unnoticed.
A very common example of hiraeth that I have seen is among people who travel. Exposure to different cultures through travel is exciting and incredibly enriching, but it does have its negatives. As someone who has lived in six different places (including four different countries), I can vouch for this. In my personal experience, the benefits of international exposure have always far outweighed the downsides, but that hasn’t made it easy. I experience hiraeth for many of my past homes, because many of them I will never be able to return to, and, even if I do, I will never be able to return to the life I had when I was in them. The reason for this, however, is not just because I spent years of my life in these places. Hiraeth can be experienced to any extent—even from a short-term mission trip.
In training sessions for short-term mission trips, many chuckle at the idea of experiencing “culture shock” (the negative feelings that one experiences during a cultural adjustment period). I’ve heard people say they don’t think they’ll experience culture shock because they’re “only there for two weeks” or because they “did their research” or “know friends who have traveled there.” While these things can definitely contribute to making culture shock more manageable, nothing can truly eliminate the body’s natural reaction to adaptation.
One of the natural side effects of this culture shock, however, is a tendency to come back “home” with a feeling of hiraeth. Hidden amongst the relief to be back and the spiritual high of the trip, many experience a hint of sadness, longing, and nostalgia for the country and its people. These negative feelings, alongside exhaustion, can often be associated with hiraeth. There is a certain sadness that comes with saying goodbye to a place that was never really your home at all, especially when you give it your whole heart and mind on that two-week trip while honouring the Lord. When preparing yourself for these cultural experiences and full-exposure trips, remember that home is a complicated thing; home is more than just your passport country or childhood bedroom, and there can be feelings of homesickness found in even the most unexpected places of your heart.