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In July, I left my home to visit home on my way to what feels like home.

Let me explain.

I left Rochester, MN, (which is where I would probably consider home is), to go to Lebanon, TN (which is where other people would consider my home is). I said hi and bye, and then left to go to a place that really feels like home: Honduras, Central America.

What a strange feeling—to travel who-knows-how-many-miles with one carry-on suitcase and feel like you are really home. I told a few people that. Some looked at me like I was crazy and others said “I know exactly what you mean” before I had even finished my sentence. But Honduras felt like home much more than my middle-class suburban life in Lebanon or my single adult professional life in Rochester.

Maybe it’s the lifestyle. When I try to describe what I feel when I’m deliberately serving and loving people in a developing country, I usually say, “I am more like myself when I’m there.” What I mean is, when I’m there, I am who I want to be and who I believe I am really deep down. I don’t care about materialism. I care about people. I don’t care about fancy food. I want to make sure others are fed enough to live. I don’t care about the latest high tech expensive surgery. I care if people receive basic healthcare. I don’t care that my shirt and pants may not exactly match. I care that others have enough clothes to survive.

Maybe Honduras felt like home because I’d been there before and I recognized places and people more so than the people I was with. But I think it was more than that. While we were working, someone said to me “I can definitely see where your heart it.” Whoa. Did they mean Honduras? I don’t know. I took it as if they meant serving people who desperately need it.

You always hear people say you should find something you’re passionate about and make a living out of it. I’m passionate about helping people in need who don’t have much. It keeps me up at night. I lose sleep and shed tears and skip meals struggling in my mind and in prayer for those struggling in this world. And by them not having much, I mean more than food and clothes. I mean hope. And faith. And a relationship with God. It just so happens that God told us to go to those in need and help them. To feed, clothe, shelter, and teach them.

Honduras isn’t the only place where there are people in great need. I don’t know where God will send me. I also don’t think it really matters now. But I’m listening, soberly.