Assimilate or Go Home

From childhood, D.L. Mayfield longed to be a missionary, so she was thrilled when the opportunity arose to work with a group of Somali Bantu refugees in her hometown of Portland, OR. As the days, months, and years went by, her hopeful enthusiasm began to wear off, her faith became challenged, and the real work of learning to love and serve her neighbors grew harder, deeper, and more complex. She writes: “The more I failed to communicate the love of God to my refugee friends, the more I experienced it for myself. The more overwhelmed I felt as I became involved in the myriads of problems facing my friends who experience poverty in America, the less pressure I felt to attain success or wealth or prestige. And the more my world started to expand at the edges of my periphery, the more it became clear that life was more beautiful and more terrible than I had been told.” In this collection of stunning and surprising essays, Mayfield invites readers to reconsider their concepts of justice, love, and reimagine being a citizen of this world and the upside-down kingdom of God. This collection of essays explores the harsh and dreadful beauty of love in action: Faith and Doubt: Follow the author’s journey from a confident young missionary longing to save the world to a woman grappling with a faith made real by failure and questions. Spiritual Formation: Discover a spirituality forged not in success, but in the slow, complicated work of sitting on couches, listening to stories, and learning to love her neighbors. Social Justice Issues: Confront the complex realities of poverty, resettlement, and systemic injustice in America through the eyes of Somali Bantu neighbors. Culture Shock: Explore the messy, beautiful, and sometimes hilarious moments of cross-cultural friendship, where good intentions meet the profound challenges of language, trauma, and assimilation.