Editor’s note: Elena is the daughter of Rick and Becky Mackey, who are Calvary-sponsored missionaries in the Dominican Republic. Rick was the youth pastor at Calvary for many years, leading mission trips to the DR. Elena spent her first few years at Calvary after being adopted from Columbia and before they moved permanently to the DR in 2007 when she was 5.
by Elena Mackey
I have experienced a lot of changes in my life. Sometimes I’m there to see them; buildings being torn down piece by piece and rebuilt into something new. Sometimes a road is paved over in my absence, and it takes me by surprise when I don’t feel the bumps I had gotten so used to. In Matt Haig’s Book How to Stop Time, the main character has been alive for centuries and has returned to London where he made some of his dearest memories with a woman he had loved. As he walks down the streets he feels increasingly grieved looking for places, memories that had since been paved over. After centuries of being gone, the London he knew only existed in history books and in his memory.
Growing up as an MK (missionary kid), my home was overseas in the Dominican Republic, but home was also the U.S. or, more specifically, Rochester. I’ve jumped between both places throughout my years growing up even though I mostly lived in the D.R., that was where I felt most at home.
Now I’ve been living in the U.S. for the past 5 years. One thing that still seems to catch me off guard is how a place will change, especially if those changes happen while I’m not there. Rochester has seen a lot of change in all the years that I haven’t been living here. Now, when I go home to the D.R. I see significant changes happening to the buildings, businesses, roads, and people. Some of those places I can still picture in my mind as a piece of home, are simply no longer there. Change comes in and, well, changes everything. “It is depressing to feel your life erased” (How to Stop Time by Matt Haig). Sometimes this is how it feels when I have been absent from a place for too long. Everything changes, and whatever space I had existed within there is eventually erased.
I grieve the roads of my past that get paved over. The places I’ll never get to go back to, except in memory. We all have places like that. Childhood homes that get sold or have since been torn down. A favorite restaurant that has closed, and you’ll never have your favorite dish from there again. It’s also not only places. I grieve the friends I lost contact with, fell apart from, or had to walk away from. Heck, a part of me even grieves my failed relationships because at one point, I was very happy in them. But moving on was always necessary. Part of me hates to see a newly paved road when I’m back home. But man, it is also nice to be able to drive without having to dodge a pothole every few feet. I get to see amazing changes happen in my life, in the countries or cities I visit, and in the people around me.
A newly paved road is endless possibilities into the future. Even as I leave fond memories in the past, I carry on paving a new road into the future. There are new paths I get to explore. I’m figuring out how to be an established adult, I pay bills, go on road trips, make new friends…I even go to the chiropractor cause at the ripe age of 23, my bones are already cracking. I’m working on a master’s degree that will eventually get me into my dream job. There is so much I have to look forward to. Even though that also means my time in Rochester will be coming to an end after having been here a year. Another end, more roads that will be paved over. With all the road construction that happens in Minnesota I imagine it won’t take long. How much will have changed the next time I come back?
Yet, like I said, moving on is necessary. It is a constant fulfillment of God’s promise to us as His people and one He personally reminded me of the beginning of 2024: “I will deliver you”. Every hurdle I’ve ever had to make it over and every road that has now been paved over, He has delivered me through it. He has walked with me when the path was riddled with holes. He has walked with me when it is a newly paved road that I easily walk along. Change and moving on is necessary to follow the calling God has placed on my life, whether I think I know what it is or I’m just following Him with faith. I may grieve much of what I’ve left behind, but it doesn’t last too long when I think of all I have to look forward to in this life and for eternity.
A Paved Road I No Longer Know
A paved road I no longer know
Memories held close to my chest
New paths I must learn to sow
Places I had been so long ago
To be left in the past may be best
A paved road I no longer know
Dirt to concrete here below
Within me grief will manifest
New paths I must learn to sow
A piece of my soul to let go
Tear it straight from my breast
A paved road I no longer know
My soul be ready to move and grow
Not ever a simple request
New paths I must learn to sow
Allow the tears to freely flow
Lay the past down to rest
A paved road I no longer know
New paths I must learn to sow
Elena Mackey is a third culture kid/missionary kid with roots in Colombia, Rochester, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. She currently works at Mayo Clinic and is pursuing a masters degree in Global Leadership from Crown College. She joins her two passions and degrees in writing and psychology in the poems, stories, and essays she posts on her website, Where the Weak Become Strong, about her experiences.
2 thoughts on “Testimony from an MK: a paved road”
Beautifully written, Elena. I can relate to many of the pavings and emotions. All the best with your future endeavors.
That was a beautiful poem! I too write or I suppose, more accurately, used to write poetry. Your article was truly sent by our Lord today to minister to pain in my heart because so often I try to hold on with clenched fists to the past roads. As the apostle Paul reminds us, we must put the past in the past and do exactly asyou so beautifully describe, head onward along the roads He has laid before us to sow, sow, sow!! Thank you for sharing!