When Emily Richardson looked out the car window at the nation’s capitol, her first thought was that the city looked like the one she was most familiar with in Mozambique.

Emily went to Mozambique with her parents Michael and Jessica when she was 3 years old. Now at 7 the USA seems a foreign place to her.

Michael and Jessica and their three children have returned to the USA for home assignment and they are experiencing culture shock in reverse.

The family made a trip to Washington, D.C., to see the wonders of the capitol.

“I think the thing that stood out most to the kids though was the water fountains,” Jessica wrote. “They couldn’t get over the fact that you can drink water from the tap and you just push the button and water squirts up your nose and if you’re lucky a little will make it into your mouth. I think we literally stopped at every water fountain in the Air and Space Museum, Natural History Museum and all along the Mall.”

A visit to a church made a sharp contrast to worship services in Mozambique.

“During worship time there were the words to the songs and videos playing on the six different huge flat screen TVs in the front of the church and artificial fog rolled in as the band started playing,” wrote Jessica. “What a difference from last week when we were sitting on a plain wooden bench in a church in Mozambique surrounded by at least three different languages, all worshipping God without any instruments except their voices.”

While the Richardson family is delighted to be back in the USA, they need prayer for their adjustment to their home culture. Pray also that God will give them wisdom about sharing with others what God has been doing in and through them in Mozambique.