Home, the Long Way Round

In the past few weeks, a lot of people in the YAGM community have shared articles and their own musings on the transition back to American life and the effects of reverse culture shock.  One country coordinator and YAGM alum wrote a blog and told of someone being so overwhelmed with the number of toothpaste options upon returning home, that they got sick in the drugstore. I can't imagine anything like that happening to me. I'm looking forward to having Crest and Scope available as oral hygiene options, but I doubt I'll get sick over such an inconsequential addition. I've been living in not only a very western/first world country, but also in a very affluent area of England. It's quite obvious that I'm living in another country, but as far as the lifestyle I'm afforded, I might as well still be living in America, so I constantly question what my own reverse culture shock is going to be like. Still, I know I am a different person than I was when I left Chicago in August, but so is everyone I know from home. This year hasn't been a vacuum for me to have experiences and everyone I know to be left like a book on a shelf to pick up exactly where I left them. So when lots of the people I talk to say they imagine I'm looking forward to going home, I always respond, "yes and no." I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends, to driving my car, to American pancakes and other foods/restaurants, to having air conditioning, and to temperatures being given in Fahrenheit. But at the same time, I'm not looking forward to leaving behind people that have become as close as family, the view out my windows and around Winchester, British foods, having a week or more off every six weeks when I can easily travel to countries I've dreamed of seeing for years, and public transport that goes almost everywhere (despite how many complaints the Brits have about their rail system). I feel like going home will be absolutely the same as my life was before I left, but I also feel like life will be utterly different. In short, I have no idea what it will be like for me to move back to America and how I will handle it. So I ask that you be patient, be gentle, be kind, and most of all, be loving. I'm sure I'll need as much support coming home as I did in leaving.

It's Only a Matter of Time

Time is a funny thing. It never seems to pass at the rate you want it to. If you want it to go slowly, it seems to speed by, and if you want time to hurry up, it plods along. I've been particularly noticing how fast it rushes by lately. A few weeks ago, the chaplain asked me if there's anything I hoped to do with my last six weeks. I kind of panicked at him and asked if it was really only six weeks I had left, to which he, very helpfully, answered that it was really five because we had a week off for half term. There have been times where I wanted time to go faster because I missed people and experiences back home, and there have been times where I want time to slow down because I don't want to have to leave. At this point, I wish time would just feel like its going at its given pace. In some ways, I'm ready to go home, but I also don't want to leave the people I've gotten to know here. The thing I've been struggling with most is that when I go home, my life will have been changed forever, but life here goes on the same as it always does. Yes, I will have left an impact on people here, but anyone else who would have come here (and in fact has been here or will be here in the future) would have left their own impact as well. Over half term, I spent a few days with a couple other YAGMs, and one made a point that really hit home for how I'm feeling about leaving. In most jobs, when you leave, someone else gets hired and it's more of a feeling that you just move on when the next thing comes along. With this, though, it's a strange sense that we're back to "normal life" and someone else comes in and gets to have their own life changing experiences. For myself, I've had a sense that since I have to leave, I don't want to leave "my girls" with just anyone. I know that I have to move on with my life for both my sake and theirs, but still can't help but wish for just a little more time.

For the Beauty of the Earth

This weekend, there's been a "boarding festival" that included a camp out. Knowing it would be my weekend on duty, I heartily volunteered because I love camping, and there would be a campfire where I was determined to introduce the girls to s'mores. Before the campfire, there was story telling, a barbecue, and music. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and I got to spend it outside having fun with my friends. As the evening wore on, several people wished me luck with sleeping outside with two dozen girls to be responsible for. Still, once I was in my tent, I couldn't help but love the idea of sleeping out in God's creation. There's a line from a movie I love, where one character asks another if he believes in God. His response is, "Wonder at creation, worship the Creator." And, apart from a tent and the fact that the sky was entirely clouded over, there I was in the middle of it. As I lay there, I could feel the stress, frustration and annoyance drain out of me to be replaced by a sense of inner peace. So in the morning when people asked me how it went, I said it was great, even in spite of a rain shower that woke me up at around 2 in the morning. Later, there was a school evensong in the cathedral. At the very end of the service, a bird got into the cathedral, singing its way through the closing prayers and song. It was as though the two were calling out, each to each. The formal decorum of a choir singing a blessing in a physically beautiful and imposing demonstration of religion. The simple song of the bird, singing because it knows nothing else, but the joy of making music for the pleasure of being alive in the free world. The two joined together, praising a God who is equally as present amongst stained glass and columns as He is in trees and sunsets.

The Church Ladies

When I had one of my orientations in Chicago, I asked some YAGM alums how to figure out what church to go to. One of them gave one of the best pieces of advice I've had for maybe this whole experience. Find the old church ladies because they will take care of you. After doing some church scouting, I've ended up going to, as I fondly think of it, the church of the old people. Most of the Sundays that I get to go, I'm the youngest person by about 30 years. Partly, I ended up going there because that was the church that felt the most like church I'm used to from home, but even more than that, I never leave church until at least half an hour after church finishes because so many people come up to talk to me. Today was no exception. Even though it's Good Friday, there was fellowship time after the service. One woman, that I don't remember talking to before today, asked what my plans are for Easter dinner. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm not going to be around for Easter, I'm thoroughly convinced that someone I was sitting near would have invited me over for lunch. For a while, earlier in my time here, I was really struggling with the fact that I didn't know any other Christians in my age range around my area. Part of that I realized was my own fault for not going to a "happy, clappy" church as I've heard them labeled, where there would be more people in my age range. But when I next went to church, those thoughts instantly vanished because everyone welcomed me so warmly. Maybe it's because I grew up as the youngest person in the family, but I love getting to listen to the stories of those who are older than me. I think that's been part of what helped me settle into being here. They've kindly told me about the place I'm living, people here, places I should see, and their experience and knowledge of America. So, although I love my job, my co-workers, my gap family, and the girls at school, I can't imagine what my life would have been like here if I hadn't found my English church family.

Who am I?

One of the things I've found challenging at several times during my year has been figuring out how I fit into this year of service. I'm part of YAGM with the ELCA, but I'm also part of Time for God. In addition to the 84 YAGM brothers and sisters I have serving around the world, I also have another 80 or so TfG brothers and sisters from around the world serving here in the UK, plus my gap fam with the 5 other gaps working at my school. I constantly question if I'm standing just in one community or another community, two communities, three communities, or no community. In other YAGM communities, the ELCA has partnered with the Lutheran church in whatever the host country is. I think the YAGMs in most countries work in Lutheran churches, Lutheran organizations, or at least have a Lutheran community to support them. I haven't met a single British Lutheran, let alone many people who even know much about the fact that Lutheran is a Christian denomination. In some ways, I feel most comfortable with my other UK YAGMs because with them, I don't have to question how, or even if, I fit into this puzzle. I'm just another piece. For most of my time here, I've felt more connected to TfG because that's who I see and work with now that I'm here. I had a YAGM retreat this past week, though, and one guy said he only felt like a YAGM because there's another TfG volunteer at his placement and he's had to explain to his community why she doesn't go to all the retreats he does and have as many privileges as he has. That was the first I realized that probably all of us are struggling with how we fit into the partnership of YAGM and TfG. When I found out that the director of YAGM was coming to our retreat, I questioned as to why she was bothering to come see us. It felt to me like the point of sending YAGMs to the UK was that TfG was already established here, so they could handle us without needing oversight from YAGM or the ELCA. In the end, though, it turned out to be really beneficial for me to have her, and a UK YAGM alum from a couple years ago, at that retreat. We all ended up having a really long discussion about how we maybe worried a little more than we needed to about how this relationship would work out before we got here, but we still feel a sense of disconnect from the other volunteers we serve with both here, and around the world. She was really great to listen to all our concerns and recognize they're things that need to be addressed in the future, but also helped us see the benefits of the experience of having both organizations support us. The alum that was with us said that he remembers feeling the exact same way we have been feeling while he was here. I think the most powerful thing, though, was when the TfG rep we've had at all of our retreats spoke up. Since he's been with TfG for a while, he can see how the relationship between YAGM and TfG works out. Some people brought up that they felt like YAGM didn't think they were tough enough to go to a country where they would have to learn a new language, and wouldn't have the same standard of lifestyle as we are afforded by going from the US to the UK, but he said he thinks we have to be some of the toughest people in the YAGM program. There are a lot of YAGMs that go to a country with a language they've never heard, so it takes them a long time to form deep relationships with their communities. We're able to start forming relationships from day one. In his head, there's no language or cultural barrier we can hide behind, so we can and have to get into the real dark and dirty side of the communities we serve in. More than anything else, I think that helped remind me that YAGM and TfG can exist together. I saw that it's not so much about the label of who we are that affects what we're doing, it's the impact we make and the relationships we build that are what's important about this year.

Cucumbers and Marmite

Today has been a tough day. Last week, the chaplain was in on a meeting with a girl who's been self-harming and not eating. A decision was reached that since she doesn't like the school psychologist, she has to talk to someone about the struggles she's having, and she surprised people by saying she wants the chaplain to be the person she talks to. Because of when I've been out of the office, I didn't meet her until today. In the past day or so, she said she's only eaten a few slices of cucumber and marmite on less than a full slice of toast. There are some questions if she's exaggerating her situation to get attention, even so, I don't think I'd even be able to stand up if I ate that little in a day. It was a hard thing for me to deal with. At one point the chaplain said to imagine being happy in her life, but she just shook her head no. It didn't seem so much like she couldn't imagine being happy, but that she wouldn't imagine being happy. He wasn't asking for her to believe there will be a time in her life when she'll be happy, just to imagine what being happy would feel like. I think that was the hardest thing for me. Not that she thinks her life is so bad she simply cannot imagine it getting better, but that she doesn't even want to try to imagine a better life. We'd go from these moments where we were trying to get her to agree to eat something, anything, for supper to laughing about stories of ridiculous taxi drivers. I've never knowingly had so much interaction with someone who's self harming and starving themselves, but I found it so hard to justify why someone who could seem so happy one minute was so convinced that her life is permanently stuck at rock bottom the next. It's been hard to figure out what to say to her. I can't imagine what's going on in her head, and trying to reason with her or offering encouragements that life will get better are getting nowhere. It seems like an impossible task, but at the same time, I feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Wonderful Snow

Yesterday I went with the chaplain to do a junior school (essentially an elementary school) assembly. The assembly was about snow at first, which was surprisingly appropriate because he planned the assembly about a week ago, and we had a few hours of snow in the afternoon. But he got on to the real point of the assembly when he told about when he was a student sitting in a rather boring lesson at school about wonder. In the class were some international African students. During the lesson, it started to snow. The teacher stopped the lesson to point out their expressions. The African students had never seen snow before, and the teacher said that right there, all their faces was what he was trying to tell them about wonder. It's funny how I so often find the messages in children's stories more poignant than if the same story were told with an adult audience in mind. I suddenly started thinking about how often I actually appreciate the wonder in my own life. Most days I wake up and groan because I don't want to get up and go to work. It's not because I don't like my job, it's just that I inevitably went to bed later than I would have liked the night before, and my bed is so warm and cozy. But then I took a minute to think about all the wonder I don't pay attention to in my life. It's in the beautiful sunrise I never would have seen if I had stayed in bed. It's the little girl who takes my hand and looks up at me with the most precious smile I would never have gotten to know if I didn't help with music classes in the junior school. It's the girl whose mental health I've been worried about all year suddenly deciding she wants to be baptized and confirmed I would never have met if I didn't take this leap of faith to come here. Normally, I think of wonder as those things that do make you stop and appreciate how amazing life is, but I also think there are lots of little wonders that we miss everyday because we're too busy, or tired, or stressed, or upset, or a list of countless other things to actually pay attention to what's around us. I think our lives could be richer if we looked for wonder in the big things and the little things. So my challenge for myself is to look for wonder, and not let it just slide by me unnoticed.

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Today on my flight over to Dublin was the first time I've really been able to enjoy the view out a plane window. I realized in a new way how small we all are in the grand scheme of things. We walk on the skin of this earth that that hangs in balance in the black void of space. I'm a fan of the show Doctor Who, and despite the fact that its thought of a a quirky, science-y show, it often has surprising insight. One of my favorite lines says something about the universe being vast, complicated, and ridiculous, but sometimes impossible things happen that we call miracles. Even though my ideas are an amalgamation of creation and evolution, I think that line from Doctor Who holds true about our planet. In the whole universe, there is one earth, and it's beautiful. I think people to often forget how impossible the chances of this planet being here are, so they don't realize what a miracle it is. Right from the start of the Bible, we see "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." ( Genesis 1:1-2). We have this tiny little planet in a sea of inhabitable darkness, that's held in place by the pull from our sun; yet God Himself decided that He wanted a something in the middle of it all. If He took the time to show off, maybe we should take more time to notice what a miracle it is.

My Little Blue Book

School got out here really early for Christmas break, so I've had travel plans lined up for months. I'm going to be spending a week in Dublin, and I'm leaving in a few days. For a while, I've known that the other gaps have other travel plans. The girl from Ecuador is planning to spend Christmas in Spain with her aunt. Just in the last few days, though, I've found out that she has to have a visa to go there, and they keep asking her for more details and documents, so she still doesn't know when she'll get to leave. In a panic, I sent a message to the girl that was in my job last year. "Do I need a visa? I thought you could go to other countries for short vacations without having a visa. " And then I found out that was my American privilege talking. Because I have a nice navy blue, American passport, I can land in most European countries, tell the immigration officer that I'm there on vacation and be sent on my way. Meanwhile my friend has been trudging through paperwork for over a week. As is often the case in situations of racial/ethnic/gender inequality, I initially felt guilty. Guilty that I can hop on a plane to Dublin without a second thought, when she can't even have a layover in some countries without a visa, even if she doesn't leave the airport. For her to travel to most countries outside South America she either needs a visa along with any additional paperwork the country may require, or has to pay a large amount of money to go as part of a tour group. As I thought about it, I wondered if this is strictly a matter of my American privilege, or if any of it has to do with how relationships between two countries are. For instance, if I wanted to go to Russia, would I have a similar experience, or does my American passport come with fairly universal ease of travel? Since I never traveled outside the United States before I came here, I really don't have the experience or knowledge to answer that question. For now, I'm just praying that my friend can get everything to work out because no one deserves to be alone for the holidays.

Bit of a Day

I went to bed at around 1:00 this morning after Skyping with friends from home. At that point it looked like it was going to be an uphill battle, but I had faith in humanity. This morning, I got up with that faith utterly shaken. When I found out that Trump won the election, I had a gut-wrenching fear. I felt like, as a woman, my body suddenly no longer belonged to me. Obviously the results of the election don't mean that men are encouraged, let alone required to suddenly become sexist or to assault women, but it makes me fear that when those incidents happen, they'll merely be shrugged off. Despite my privilege of being white, it still felt like all my basic human rights had been taken away, like people have no respect for the rights of their mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and friends as females. This morning I just wanted to retreat inside myself and not talk to anyone. While YAGM is a one year program, I could stay on in England as a Time for God volunteer for a second year, but in too many ways that just feels like running away and hiding from the problem. As the day has progressed, though, I remembered (with the help of reminders from my fellow YAGMs) that while part of the point of YAGM is to spend a year in service to our brothers and sisters around the world, part of the call is also to go home and fight for the victims of inequality and injustice, ultimately to change the system that allows those things to happen. Politics has never been my call. One of the environmental studies options with my major was to focus on policy, which I avoided as much as possible. The flare of anger I feel in situations like this is too often, and too quickly cooled for it to lead me to significant action. I realize that my place is to stand with the oppressed and marginalized. I may be too shy to be a politician and too scared stand up to the politicians. But I can offer love and support to those whose voices are not being heard. In the past few years, I've thought pretty seriously about going to seminary school. I still don't know for sure if I will or not, but today has been a pretty big addition to the list of reasons why I should go to seminary. On this day, I've found comfort in the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda. "Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside." We may not end up with the America many of us hoped for, but the fight for love, acceptance, and equality goes on.

Beautiful People

This morning, I went to what could be referred to as a "hand raising" church. For a fun reference, I remembered the comedian Tim Hawkins' video on hand raising churches.

I read about the church before hand, so I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting into, but it's one of the closer churches to school, so I decided to check it out. The first part of the service was a lot of contemporary music, so needless to say, I didn't know any of it. During the music, I was contemplating why is it that I can go to a concert and dance around, but put me in church, and I'm a very good stereotypical Lutheran. Don't sit too close to the front, don't do anything that would call attention to yourself, and get some exercise in by doing Lutheran aerobics. I remember reading an article in a magazine I used to get where the author discussed church music. She talked about how contemporary music is great for relating to younger and more "modern" generations of church attendees, but that there's nothing like an old traditional hymn to really get at the really deep love or pain of life. That thought brought me to laugh at myself for remembering the Time for God motto of "it's not wrong, it's just different." I found myself really loving the message, though. With some of the "hand raising" churches I've been at, you notice it during the sermons as well, but I didn't here. From the feel I got while I was there, it felt like a church that is really involved in the community, but doesn't seek to smack everyone that walks by over the head with a Bible. They seem happy to live the love of God in the community, but save the "hand raising" for the four walls of their worship space. I just got back a couple days ago from a class on Christian Mission, where we discussed that in their true forms, being a missionary or evangelist isn't finding a megaphone and yelling for the heathens to repent. It's simple acts of kindness and love. Like offering something as simple as cup of hot chocolate after bonfire night, which is exactly what they're going to be doing next Saturday. Now, I definitely plan to do more church shopping, but that seems like a church community I could support.

Later this afternoon, a couple of the gap assistants and I went into town to get tea and scones. One of the girls was the French assistant, and she thought the barista had a French accent, so as we were paying, she asked where he was from. When he said France, they began speaking to each other in French. He didn't seem like an unfriendly guy before, but when he was able to speak in his native language, his face just lit up. Even though I only understood about two words out of their entire conversation, it was a really beautiful thing to watch. Before hand, I knew what she wanted to talk to him about, and she told us after we left that they weren't talking about anything more in depth than scones, but in that moment, I still saw God in the beauty of languages. And suddenly, I thought of the first Pentecost, and the amazement of hearing about God in your own language for the first time. Peter tells us of that amazement in Acts 2. "Utterly amazed, they asked: 'Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?'" Later, he quotes Joel, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." (Acts 2: 7-9, 17)

We all have different ways of communicating. Whether that be our faith, or the language we speak. In a world where it's all too easy to point out the flaws in our neighbors, but forget about the faults in ourselves, I think it's worth keeping in mind the wisdom and grace shown by my English brothers and sisters. It's not wrong, it's just different.

Perspective

Perspective is a funny thing. I've been thinking a lot lately about how my perspectives have changed during the time I've been here. So far just about none of my "job" part of being here has been what I expected. I mean, once the chaplain gets here, I don't know what to expect about what my job will be like, but I figured that until he arrived, I would be doing whatever a chaplain does, just by myself. In actuality, though, I've done a LOT of filing. But on Thursdays for the past few weeks, I spend my day in Food Tech, which is basically Home Ec. At first, I really didn't like it. I mean, I don't love filing either, but I actively disliked being in Food Tech my first day. Before I started that day, I expected my days to be filled with cooking/baking, and eating a lot of food. It's funny, thinking back on that because when I was still in Chicago, one of the activities we did was to write EXPECTATIONS on a blindfold, and I kept mine, and tied it to my bag to remind myself that during this whole year I will be carrying around expectations. Some of them will be realized, others will be broken, and others still will blind me to the reality of my situation and experience.

Anyway, back to perspective, that first day in Food Tech, I felt like all I did was follow around this crazy woman who ran around like a chicken with her head cut off, measure out ingredients for a class that I figured should be able to get their own ingredients to cook, spend an absurd amount of time cleaning and organizing cupboards and counter tops, and take out the trash. And, okay, maybe that is what a lot of my days in Food Tech have been like, but I enjoy my time there so much more now than I did at first. We kind of do have to run around because there is a lot to do, and even if that woman has some quirks (and who doesn't?) there's always enough time for her to offer me a cup of tea no less than 4 times a day. Those ingredients I thought the class should have to measure out themselves? They literally don't have time to because they're learning way more in depth cooking and nutrition than I ever did in Home Ec. It still does seem crazy how much time is spent organizing the cupboards, but not everyone to pass through that kitchen has mastered the art of if-you-use-it-clean-it-up-and-put-it-back yet. But most importantly, what I've found is that there are some really kind, caring women in that department. It's gotten to the point where I think even after the chaplain gets here, I'll want to stop in for the occasional cup of tea just to visit with them. And I think it's those kinds of things that are the most important lessons of this year; making friends and forming new ideas where I might never have looked to in the past.

(I had to. I love Ego.)

What Am I Doing Here??

As I am still a chaplain's assistant without a chaplain to assist for another month and a half or so, I've been doing odd jobs around campus. There's been a lot of filing, photocopying, paper cutting, and measuring out a variety of items. I'm looking forward to having a routine, and doing what I came here to do. That being said, this past week, I've gotten some tips that there are some girls going through some really tough situations, so they might want to talk to me. And suddenly my viewpoint shifted. I'm concerned for these girls, of course, and want to help them in any way I can, but at the same time, my head suddenly said, "WHAT AM I DOING HERE?" I don't have a chaplain here to help me figure out how to help these people. I've never had any training in how to be a counselor. I am nowhere near qualified to help these girls get through what they're dealing with. To be honest, I panicked.

And then I took a step back and actually thought about it. I'm NOT a chaplain/pastor/counselor/therapist/whatever other title I might add to the list. Does that mean I have nothing to offer these girls? Absolutely not. I started thinking about the ultimate example of Jesus as a 12 year old, sitting in the temple, completely baffling the teachers with his understanding. Someone it would stereotypically be so easy for an adult to disregard brought a whole new set of wisdom to the table without any type of fancy degree. So, maybe I haven't experienced the exact same thing these girls are going through, but I've had 25 years of life experiences, and I know for a fact that no one's life is sunshine and roses all the time. I might not have a fancy title to qualify me to help these girls, but maybe something I've gone through will be just what someone needs to hear about to know that things do get better. If nothing else, I've had amazing family members who have realized that even when people don't want to talk, sometimes sitting together is more powerful than any words that can be spoken.

It's a Small World After All

I have arrived safely in England, and since the girls don't start coming back to school until Tuesday, we're working on getting the house ready. There was a rough map of the world on the wall in one of the common rooms that, instead of having the countries drawn out, had stickers of the country names written out in an approximation of the size and shape of each country. The problem was each sticker wasn't a country name, so literally every country name was spelled out with stickers of each individual letter in the name. So, over the hours I spent peeling probably thousands of letter stickers off the wall, I wasn't so much struck by how much I need a remedial 5th grade geography class, but of how small the world really is, yet how big it seems. My flight from Chicago to London took about 8 hours. According to Wikipedia, (I know it's Wikipedia, but bear with me here) in 1913, a London newspaper offered £10,000 to anyone who could fly an airplane from the U.S. or Canada to Great Britain or Ireland within 72 consecutive hours or less. Just a little over 100 years later, I made the journey in 1/9 of the time. In these days, the longest flight I know of is from the U.S. to Australia, which is somewhere around 24 hours. I could be in literally any country in the world in about a day or less, yet there are hundreds of countries I will never see. Back to peeling stickers, I thought about what a privilege it is that I'm able to travel to anywhere in the world. There are probably billions of people on this planet that will never have that opportunity. Our lives are polar opposites. And yet, we're all inextricably linked. I have a computer, phone, and an iPod which is ridiculous when you think about the fact that there are places in this world that struggle with access to clean water. Things that I consider common everyday items are robbing the resources of other countries, yet we depend on some of those countries to produce those very items I have. The problem is that when we watch the news and hear about epidemics, wars, and natural disasters, we often think of our world in terms of me vs. them. In reality, though, there is no me or them. There is only us. So despite the fact that I peeled stickers off the wall labeling countries as familiar as Canada, and as unfamiliar as Eritrea, we all share in the joys and tragedies of this world together.

Come Closer

A couple mornings ago, we used the poem "Closer" by Anis Mojgani in devotional, and since it's seemed to apply to so much of what we've talked about. Here's a link to read it, it's really beautiful. http://badilishapoetry.com/anis-mojgani/

The poem has been swirling around my head for the past few days, and it feels like a culmination of this entire experience. This year is a chance for me to come closer to so many beautiful and painful things in this world. I'll get to walk in community with my brothers and sisters in England, coming closer to God and to who I am. But I've also found it to call me to come closer to the pain of discrimination and violence. We've talked about the differences, and aggression we experience or witness towards people of color and people in the LGBTQI community. The stories people have shared have moved me to tears. I will never have to experience, or be able to fully understand the fear that I could be shot during a routine traffic stop because of the color of my skin, or have to hide my sexuality to avoid harassment. That doesn't mean I can keep these issues at an arms length and pretend they don't exist. We are called to come closer to the people of this world and fight for equality and justice. Until we can put inequality behind us, we are all bound by its shackles. At the same time, I read this poem, and remind myself of the value in my life. Sometimes it takes reading things like this to remember that. So I hope that this year will help me come closer to my place in this world.

A Beginning

This is really happening. I am leaving the country for England in a week and a day. I'm in Chicago for a week of orientation/training, so there's no going back on this now. I've had such a range of emotions about this experience in the past month. Probably somewhere about Friday, it became exceptionally real that I'm leaving, not only for an amazing life-changing, faith-changing experience, but also leaving behind my friends and family for almost an entire year. I began searching through my iPod for a song to help me cope with the emotions I was struggling with, when I came upon This Road by Jars of Clay, which has become somewhat of my anthem for how I'm feeling, and the title of this blog.

I still feel like I'll be in a perpetual state of panic until I get myself settled in England, but knowing that I'm here, surrounded by other people who are likely feeling much the same as I am, and people who have been through what I'm experiencing is a comfort. And I'm trying to remember that no matter how scared I may feel, I have an amazing group of people who are praying and care for me. And no matter how far away I go from home, I'm never really alone. Before I went to bed last night and attempted to get at least a few hours of sleep, I pulled out a Bible to give myself this reminder: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD. Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)