“What are you doing for fall break?” I asked for probably the hundredth time that day.
The closer we got to fall break, the more I heard this question. I was asking people this question. I heard students asking this question everywhere I went. It seemed to be a part of every conversation. It almost felt strange to walk away from a conversation without having talked about fall break plans.
Leading up to this fall break, I heard many different answers to this inevitable question. Some people were going on various road trips or camping trips with friends. Many people, however, were using this short break as an opportunity to go home and see their families.
What about those students who can’t just go home and spend time with their families for a short break? Union is home to many missionary kids and international students. What do they do?
“You get a lot of invites when you’re in my position,” said Tamara Friesen, senior digital media communications major.
A gentle breeze blew her curls as she spoke.
When she was a senior in high school, Friesen’s parents told her and her siblings that they were going to move to India. Friesen sent them off to India two weeks before she moved into her freshman dorm at Union University.
Up until last December when her family moved back to the states, Friesen has lived in Jackson, Tennessee, while her parents and younger sisters have been on the other side of the world. Going home to see her family over any regular, short break was just not an option.
During Christmas breaks and summer breaks, Friesen would fly to India to spend time with family, but she was on her own for any holidays in between those.
Over the past three years, Friesen has spent her time off in a variety of different ways. While she has spent some breaks alone, she has spent many of them going on trips with friends or joining a friend’s family for the break.
“It’s actually really sad,” Friesen said about the times that she has been on campus after the vast majority of students have left.
Friesen’s stories of those times spent with friends and their families are quite different though.
“It’s so fun!” said Friesen with a huge smile on her face. “Meeting people is just second nature to me.”
While she loves the opportunity to get to be with families and understand her friends’ backgrounds, Friesen acknowledges a tension that arises when being around these families causes her to miss her own family a little more.
She spoke of the first time she went home with her roommate during her freshman year.
“I wasn’t really aware of how it would affect me,” said Friesen thoughtfully.
As she saw her roommate’s childhood pictures hanging on the walls in her home and met her two parents and two younger sisters, Friesen was met with unexpected emotion.
“I felt more and more isolated and more and more lonely,” said Friesen. “I couldn’t understand why.”
She explained it to me as a feeling of loss—a loss of the experience of family and home. However, she noted patiently that heaven will be her first permanent home.
“I don’t think people quite understand that I’ve never had like a fixed home or a fixed bedroom,” Friesen explained. “I would be a guest in my parents’ house.”
She spoke with grace. It was clear to me that she was not judging or condemning anyone for not really understanding her situation.
“I have to learn that my reality is not everyone’s reality,” said Friesen gently. “We can always teach each other something.”
Friesen is not the only Union student who has dealt with these tensions. Over the last few years, David Kagaruki, a junior Christian studies major from Tanzania, has also spent his breaks with different friends and families when he was unable to return home to his own family.
During his freshman year, Kagaruki spent time over Thanksgiving break and J-term with a family in Clarksville, Tennessee.
“It didn’t feel like home obviously, but it was still comforting to know that there was somewhere I could go,” said Kagaruki.
Since then, Kagaruki has done different things for breaks—sometimes staying on campus after most of the students had left, sometimes joining a friend’s family or sometimes gathering a group of friends to take a trip.
With a wide grin, Kagaruki acknowledged that he is an extrovert but told me that staying on campus over breaks was not too bad after all.
“Usually it feels weird at first, but I find people,” explained Kagaruki.
It would be easy to feel self-pity over his circumstances when he hears of other students going home to see family, but Kagaruki perceives this as an opportunity.
“I do feel jealous at times, but that kind of drives me to find people who aren’t going back home,” Kagaruki told me.
He did not claim that it was always easy or always felt good. He simply spoke of his choice to be present where he is and invest in the people right in front of him—even if it hurts a little.
“Inviting people that don’t have places to go is my desire because that’s what people did for me,” said Kagaruki.
Kagaruki has not had to spend many holidays on campus though. He loves meeting new people and experiencing the hospitality of families.
“I could sum it up with ‘joyful,’” Kagaruki said, with evident joy in his expression. “I haven’t had a bad experience.”
Being with different families over breaks has allowed Kagaruki to encounter homes with a solid foundation of faith and to consider the kind of family he wants to start and raise up.
“I do miss my family,” Kagaruki told me. “A lot of times I see [the family I’m staying with] and think ‘Wow, I want to have a family like that.’”
Both Kagaruki and Friesen expressed such grace and faith as they told me their stories of school breaks and how the Lord has used those times to teach and grow them.
Make plans for your breaks. Enjoy the time you get to spend at home or with your family. Be attentive to the students around you who do not have a family nearby or who do not yet have a place to call home.
Photo by Tamara Friesen
