A Stranger in my Homeland

I was halfway through the second Avatar movie when a flight attendant’s voice broke in to announce our imminent landing. With slightly trembling hands, I took off the plane’s headset, adjusted my seat, and raised the window shade. My breath caught. From beneath the clouds, a place I hadn’t seen in nine years emerged—Cameroon, my homeland. I leaned forward as the city’s faint glow rose into view. A wave of joy washed over me, and a song I had been saving for this moment filled my head. So I grabbed my earphones, hit play, and let these lyrics escort me down:

“Anywhere you go, London, USA, nowhere be like Africa, nowhere be like home.”

After the plane landed smoothly and the passengers broke into applause, I exited the aircraft and followed the signs towards customs and baggage claim. Nsimalen airport looked the same as I recalled. The long corridors, tattered walls, and outdated kiosks all seemed unchanged. However, I had only been there a handful of times, so I dismissed the feeling as an unreliable recollection.

I arrived at the baggage claim—a round room with whitewashed walls and narrow windows near the ceiling. At the center was a single conveyor belt, where dozens of passengers were already waiting. I squeezed my way through the crowd and waited over an hour to collect my belongings. When I finally walked out with my three pieces of luggage in tow, I headed to the main entrance. I immediately spotted my parents amid the crowd of people craning their necks and scanning the arriving passengers.

I strode past the masses, making a beeline for them, heart pounding with every step. My dad, whom I hadn’t seen in five years, raced toward me and pulled me into a tight embrace. “Welcome back home, my dear,” he whispered.

Yaounde’s only airport sits slightly outside the city center—about a 40-minute drive depending on traffic. Excited chatter filled the ride home as we discussed places to visit, people to see, and foods I hadn’t eaten in years. When we entered the city proper, I looked at the people and old familiar sights with fondness. However, as we drove deeper into the city, my joy began to slip.

He was right.

I found it challenging to adjust to living in Cameroon again, with its many problems, including unreliable power and water, poverty, and corruption. These societal issues are neither new nor unique to Cameroon. However, after living abroad in developed and prosperous places, I returned with a different outlook, one that made everything feel more rough. Even places I once thought of as grand, like hotels, shopping centers, and public buildings, now looked modest and even threadbare. It wasn’t just that Cameroon had not changed. I had. And the person I had become saw everything differently.

Becoming a Christian is a similar experience. It is stepping into the same world you once knew, only to find it doesn’t feel the same. Before believing in Christ, I didn’t understand the depth of my brokenness. I was blind to the path of destruction I was treading. But when God gave me a new life, he also changed how I saw the world. The pleasures I once pursued lost their charm, and the things I held fast now feel hollow and even repulsive. Though God leaves us in the world after salvation, he transforms how we see it. He leads us to become strangers in places that once felt like home. And the more time we spend in his presence and learn his holiness, the more our old lives feel distant and dull in comparison.

Being away for nine years meant I hadn’t seen most of my extended family in a long time. And coming from a large family—especially on my mother’s side—there were many people to reconnect with: aunts, uncles, cousins, and old family friends. A common thread ran through nearly every visit: awkwardness. Conversations were stiff, filled with long silences, and died down rapidly. But these strained connections weren’t just the result of the last nine years away.

I left Cameroon at age eight when my father took a new job in another African Country. Even though we returned to Cameroon every couple of years, the closeness I once had with my extended family and friends slowly faded. And after I left Africa for college, it all but disappeared. I barely knew the people who had known me all my life. Most of them had just become names and faces I vaguely remembered.

My father’s new job brought our family new blessings: a higher standard of living, the discovery of new cultures, and a gateway for my siblings and me to study abroad. However, these blessings came at a hefty cost: erasing bonds with extended family and lifelong friends. This opportunity cost dynamics also applies to the Christian life.

I sometimes think about past opportunities and question whether they were worth the cost to me. I will never be entirely sure. But I am confident that the rewards of following Christ far surpass the losses we suffer. Our sacrifice here is only temporary, preparing us for an eternal weight of glory.

One of my favorite aspects of this trip was being surrounded by fellow Cameroonians. I enjoyed chatting with locals, hearing street slang, and reconnecting with my countrymen. But even then, I felt like an outsider.

Having lived outside of Cameroon for most of my life among diverse cultures, my mentality, accent, and habits differed from those around me. No matter how hard I tried to blend in, I was always quickly recognized as a benguist—a term used for Cameroonians who live abroad. Even the food reminded me I no longer quite belonged. My stomach couldn’t handle the not-so-sanitary street meals I once devoured in years past (though that didn’t stop me from eating them). I had become a stranger in my homeland.

Just as I have become a stranger in the world, for scripture calls believers aliens, pilgrims, and sojourners.

God doesn’t just give us a new life and a new lens—he changes our identity. As believers, we are no longer bound to the customs and values of this world. Our citizenship has been transferred to God’s kingdom, and we remain here only as temporary residents. This means we must learn to live with the awkwardness and tension that comes with our new status. Christ took us out of the world spiritually but left us in it physically for a purpose. So we can’t compromise the rules of his kingdom to feel more at home in the world. Our calling as sojourners is to live here faithfully but never fully belong.

I have been a foreigner ever since I left Cameroon. And after living in several countries since then, I suspect I will always feel like one. Although I don’t know when or if I will permanently settle in one city or country, I know one day all my wanderings will end.

It took barely a week before I started counting the days until I departed from Cameroon. The growing sense of estrangement and loneliness was hard to bear. When the day finally arrived, it was a bittersweet moment. I had looked forward to this homecoming for months, and it fell short of what I hoped. But as the plane took off and soared into the sky, I thought of a different homecoming.

One day, the Lord Jesus will descend from those same skies to bring us home—to the city whose architect and builder is God. There, we will no longer be sojourners and strangers, but citizens and residents. And in that city, we will finally be where we truly belong. We will be home.

With this hope in mind, I watched Cameroon fade from view as the plane rose higher into the clouds.