Created to be dependent - blessings discovered on a short term trip "overseas"

I heard a lady at a mission meeting say that after being in Haiti for one week she got on the plane to come home and it felt like she was leaving the real world to go back home to our pretend world. Why is it that short term trips or being in another culture open us up like this? I certainly had this experience on two short term overseas trips in my youth.

Martin Luther in his introduction to the Lord's Prayer from the Large Catechism puts his finger on our problem of indepedence. "For we all have enough that we lack, but the great problem is that we do not see it or feel it. God wishes you to lament and express your needs and wants, not because he is unaware, but to kindle your heart to stronger and greater desires and to spread your cloak wide to receive many things" (paragraph 27).

We are created to be dependent on God to open our arms up wide to receive from him. In this culture, we are very independent and insulated planning and striving to be set for the future. We know what to expect. By going overseas to another culture or to a foreign culture inside our own country(and staying there), we can no longer depend on ourselves. We can't easily escape to our idols of familiar self support.

I wonder if that is partly why being immersed in a non-Western culture opens us up to God. We finally realize we are created to be dependent and (at least for a time) we realize that is real and less artificial than the typical independent Western 'ideal' life. The challenge for me is that after some time overseas we set up the old independent supports, relying on ourselves, perceiving ourselves as big fish and capable swimmers in foreign ponds. All of which is very dangerous - I need to continue to open up my cloak wide to receive many things from God through his other creatures and creation.