Connecting in Real Time

I'm happy. I didn't think it would be this easy to be happy or that I'd feel content so soon. I will admit, there were a couple of moments when I wondered if I had made the right decision, when I prayed for someone to talk to, or when I ate my breakfast as quickly as possible so I could leave the awkward silence surrounding me. I was tired of smiling even though inside I was lonely, tired of being positive when there was mold on the ceilings and the internet had gone out for the 5th time that hour, and tired of being cheerful when the main space on my breakfast/lunch/supper plate was occupied by the same combination of cucumbers and tomatoes and olives.

But when I had the opportunity to speak to people, then all those annoyances disappeared. You see, I love being around people. I love to listen to them tell stories, to laugh together, and to engage in a deep discussion on things in life. I can be content sitting in silence as long as I am sitting beside someone. The past few years had sadly been lacking in daily interaction unless I worked hard on making it happen. Now, just 3 days into my stay, I feel comfortable around others and I'm happy.

I have retreated to my room to gather my courage up to tackle the three flights of stairs one more time, to figure out where to make photocopies or buy toiletpaper, to go and eat in the cafeteria where I am still learning the hierarchy of the tables and who sits where. But I haven't watched a single movie or missed it. I haven't stalked Facebook friends, wishing their life was mine. I haven't done endless searches on singles dating websites, hoping to find someone who's halfway normal and also interested in connecting. In other words, I've stepped out of my virtual world and into the real world.

People still spend endless hours in the virtual world here. At breakfast, I saw 6 people clustered around a table, all good friends, and not one was interacting with the group. They were focused intently on their phones with an occasional aside to someone to look at a picture or read a meme. I'm grateful for the ones who take time to talk. To tell me stories and make me laugh. To open their hearts and trust me with their challenges. To be curious about my world and invite me into theirs.

When I left my home a little over a week ago, I had no idea where I would fit in. I'm so thankful to realize that I do fit in. My weight, my spirituality, and my diet do not factor into whether people here love me or not. I see their eyes light up as we exchange greetings and pause for a moment to share life. For this I am grateful.

For many years I have insisted that God gives us gifts that we can use to honour Him in service. Yet I never thought that our characters are also shaped so we can serve Him in joyfulness. I spent several years counting the hours til the weekend. I wasn't happy. I longed to be surrounded by people who could challenge me and accepted me with little regard for the regulations that accompanied conservative living.

Coming here and realizing how happy I am makes me sad at the same time. I realize that I could have stepped out of my comfort zone a little sooner and I wouldn't have been so unhappy. I could have left. But perhaps this is one of those life lessons and maybe the next time I find myself counting the minutes til my time is my own, I will take a deep breath and step into the Jordan.

In the small and the big

Tonight, I whispered a small prayer to God as I sat at the cafeteria table by myself and tried to look like I didn't mind. Please God, send me a friend. My plate was filled with delicious foods of my childhood, the room was filled with the mixed hubbub of Arabic, French and English among friends, but I sat silently and wondered if every meal would be like that. One day down, 364 to go. 800 meals to be precise. Not that anyone was counting. . .

After returning to my room, I tidied up to a classical playlist on YouTube, then paced the floor like a restless lion, reading from my Arabic primer while trying to ignore the colics from a stomach upset at having been served beans twice in a row. Then a Facebook message popped up. How was your first day at work? It was someone I'd met briefly that day, we'd connected virtually prior to my arrival, and I appreciated her thoughtfulness to ask. After a brief exchange, she asked if I wanted mint tea. Sure! I replied.

Two hours later, after sharing pieces of our lives, finding the common and exclaiming at the unusual, as I said goodnight and returned to my room, I smiled inside. The prayer I had sent up so timidly had been answered so quickly. What a wonderful gift from my Father!

Today has been a good day. I taught my first class period and both the students and teacher survived. I let them out 4 minutes early and did worship in the middle of class instead of at the beginning because I forgot, but that's okay. I had a work meeting with one of my bosses while the other one took me around to meet old friends. The ladies hugged me and held my hands while exclaiming over how long it had been. I took my cue from the men and most of them shook hands though one or two also hugged me. I felt myself going into my gentle mode where I smiled a lot and nodded and said little.

I got reimbursed for something, used the cash to buy water (they use dual currency here, Lebanese and USD), and lugged a 10-liter bottle up 3 flights of stairs. I am choosing to be grateful that I live on the 3rd floor so I can get in mandatory exercise several times a day. I set up appointments to buy basic items and get my phone and bank accounts activated. I walked around the campus and revisited favourite haunts. I tidied up my belongings and made a list of things to buy.

And then, when I wasn't busy getting settled, I thought. I'm happy to be here but I am realizing that only a small part of it can be based on my historical merit. It is now up to me going forward to create my own legacy. My future is a blank slate. I can get my ears pierced and listen to hard rock or I can wear hippy skirts and go gluten-free. I can be a social butterfly or a recluse. I can love the local food or refuse to eat anything fresh. I can share Jesus in class or push Him out of my life. It is up to me. A scary thing, this free will.

I saw our old house, the trees I used to climb, the basketball court where I learned to play. Some things have changed while others remain constant. Strangely enough, there is no emotion. Coming in to land, yesterday, I got a little teary-eyed as I saw the harbour I'd watched so many years before. But now, it's as if I've finally realized that my past is in my past. I can let it go and I won't break into little tiny pieces. I will admit, my mind is already thinking about 364 days from now. While I cannot foresee how my life will change, as I know it will, I am ready now to go where those who love me are. This is me. I live for companionship and what I had here before no longer exists.

I realized today that it is not the place that calls unrelenting to the TCK's heart. It is the invisible cord that connects dear ones to us. This is not easily broken; it simply stretches thin with time and space. What do we do when they relinquish the cord? We hurt for a bit but then we realize that the empty place where their cord once connected their heart to ours is now filled with other cords equally as precious. I have many of those invisible cords attached to my heart and for that I am grateful.

I Want to go Home

You know they say, you can't go home again. The song, The House That Built Me by Miranda Lambert has been running through my head all day as we took to the skies twice on my way back home. One of my homes. I'm still trying to figure out if it's my real home or a perceived feeling of being home.

My best friend bought a house several years ago. I envied her for settling into her roots even as I wondered if I could ever rationalize such a decision. It seemed to go against my values to invest in property when there were people who needed to hear about salvation. I wasn't sure if it was okay to have a house and kids and savings in the bank or if that epitomized American corporate culture. Perhaps it was several cars and lavish vacations and the latest iPhone that was not right.

As the taxi driver wended his way up the hill, I was surprised to find that I didn't remember any of it. Just a flash of the church but everything else had either grown together much closer so that it was hard for the clusters of apartments to breathe or I had forgotten. Thinking back now, I realize that we spent most of our time on campus with our friends. I'm a lifetime older now and I cannot be content with playing Kahraba or Rummikub for hours. I shall have to explore and see where the roads take me.

I'm thankful to be here. I'm apprehensive about what the future will bring. I'm determined to embrace the adventure, if this is my last hurrah before settling down into a regular career, buying that house, and saving up for two-week vacations in Europe. Above all, I'm looking to God for guidance so I can walk in His will and please Him in all I do.

Cross Over to the Other Side

Here's another job opening, the email was titled. I opened it to find something I would enjoy, though it likely would have been limiting in career growth. This was the fourth in a line of suggestions that came as I sat in a room that was slowly reducing to four walls, carpet, and furniture as I carefully packed my life away. Was I making the right decision? It had seemed so at the time but then again, I tended to embrace possibility wholeheartedly until I thought of everything that could go wrong and then I stepped back, hesitant, afraid, and changed my mind. This time, though, I couldn't say No. I'd come too far to step back.

It was three months ago that I found the missed call on the answering machine. I never called her back but I played the message twice. There were openings in corporate, I looked like a good fit as executive assistant to the president, would I please call the following number. It was one of my dream jobs--working in a non-profit Christian ministry to rescue and rehabilitate minors trapped in human trafficking. I'd attended their training, volunteered at a couple of events, and was passionate about the mission. I'd already started down a different road, though, and I could not pursue this calling.

Within the week, we were enjoying a potluck lunch at a friend's house before heading out to sing to shut-ins when the hostess turned to me and asked, Are you still looking for a job? Her husband needed a secretary, there was room for advancement, if I was interested. I had been, once. I'd interviewed for the same position 8 years ago, sat around the proverbial table with dark suits and explained why I was the best person for the job. I went home and sent a thank-you-and-hope-to-hear-from-you-soon card. Never heard anything. No email, no letter, no phone call. So I went on with life and though it once again sounded tempting to work in corporate in a ministry-focused organization, I knew this time I would not be interviewing. I had chosen a different path.

Then, as I idly passed time waiting for the visa to come, I found myself browsing the employment pages at my alma mater. I'd interviewed there a year ago, they flew me out, I'd answered the questions the 8-person strong group threw at me from carefully selected questions on a double-sided single page. I'd sat on the wonderful queen bed, agonizing for hours over how to solve a formula, then I'd given up and gone to the deli where I used my complimentary meal card to buy supper. I was one of three but I didn't make the cut. As I scrolled through the positions, I stopped at one that fit my bucket list description. A program registrar at a mainstream university. I didn't apply but within days an email came from the main interviewer from a year ago. They were recommending me to the search committee, here was the link to apply. I sent a thoughtful thank you email in reply. I'd already committed for the coming year to mission service.

And now, the fourth, would allow me to stay where I was slowly starting to feel the ties that held me even as I gently snipped each one loose. The routine of going in to my mother's office each day, ostensibly work-related, as we'd laugh and talk about life with her colleague, each of us having a similar sense of humour. The freedom of driving down the freeway with Mandisa playing loudly on the radio as I prayed out loud and absorbed the realization of God's goodness. The joy of spending time with friends as we indulged in long talks around ethnic meals or made spontaneous trips to Winco and Trader Joe's. The beauty of living in nature and breathing in fresh air untainted by cigarette smoke and smog. The security of knowing I had a home to go to every night and family who loved me. Each time I felt a pang of sadness, I allowed it to linger so I could fully embrace the experience. I was leaving but I was loved.

I'm still waiting for my visa. This holding time of six weeks and counting has brought a wealth of lessons and memories. I've also realized there is never a perfect time to leave. There will always be one more friend to see, one more restaurant to eat at, one more book to read, one more folder to sort. I think God has used my inclination to jump first, think later, to urge me into an adventure I may not have chosen after deliberate thought. I used to be the impulsive one but life had shaped me into the careful predictive one. Until this. Am I making the right decision? To be in God's will is to follow unhesitatingly, trust implicitly, and do cheerfully whatever He asks me to do. So I step into Jordan's river, my toes reaching for the water, and I wait for it to part. I know it will. He has promised.

After the Silence

Graduation is over. The reception hall has been swept clean, the trash has been taken out, and the extra food given away. Dorm keys turned in, goodbyes said, cards exchanged. The final tests have been taken and the exercise logs turned in for the last time. Now the place is still, waiting for a new beginning.

It happens twice a year, this beginning time. The week before is a flurry of busyness, phone calls, packages, early arrivals, late night airport runs. Then it is registration morning and as they walk in the door, I smile and greet them by name even before they say hello. I know who they are. I've memorized their faces, their names, the things about them that make them unique. I'm excited because we've worked so hard together to reach this point, to make this a possibility, and now God has led them here.

They have no idea what the next four months carry for them. I have an inkling, having seen similar groups come through before, but I know too that this group will grow in heart and soul in a special way that no other group has grown before. They will laugh, they will fight, they will feel overwhelmed, they will cry, they will pray. They will meld into a team of leaders that only God can create out of such individual people.

As the semester progresses, they will sense their need of God in a deeper way than before. Unlike required tests and homework, they will voluntarily seek God through community prayer as they ask for healing for themselves and for those they serve. This community will help them encourage each other when struggling and shape each other to be servant leaders.

The semester begins with a bang while the end hurries in quietly. Before we have time to fully realize what it means that it is all over, it will be. Once the hubbub has died down, the silence will come in.

This time, the ending is symbolic for my journey also. The next class that arrives will know who I am but I won't be there to greet them. I will have left for my own adventure, to learn how to be part of a team with other leaders, and to learn how to pray to God for healing for others and myself.

After the silence comes a new beginning. For them. For me.

Pray for Those Who Persecute You (Matthew 5:44)

Been listening to Amy Grant's My Grown-Up Christmas List on repeat all day. Yesterday there was a mass shooting in Southern California. On the other side of the world, children ages 8-13 were writing out their Christmas wishes. No more war. I can go home again. Everyone would love each other. I want to be happy and not sad anymore. No one to die anymore. Peace. These children were living in a country not their own, longing for the war to be over so they could resume a normal life. I read their notes and I cried. I cried hard because children should never have to endure what they went through. They deserve innocence and happiness. Not this. Never.

I feel so helpless. Then I wonder how God must feel. If I can have such empathy, as a broken human being, imagine how our all-powerful Creator Father must ache as He sees the pain. This world is a very difficult place to live in. God cannot always intervene because Satan still controls this world and humans have free will to follow whom they choose. People die and children cry.

These are not easy situations to package up with a pretty bow of a cliche. I must wrestle with the horror of sin and the beauty of grace. I will cry but even my tears cannot compare to the tears of those who must experience the terrors. God keeps each of those tears in a bottle and He remembers.

I realized the other day that the greatest revenge we can exact on our most hated enemy is for them to know Jesus. Ironic, I know, but when they meet Jesus and accept His salvation and understand the sacrifice He offered for their freedom, I believe the depth of their sin will bring deep conviction. Then, like Paul, they will be the greatest missionaries for God this world has even known. So tonight, as I pray for those who suffer, I must ask the Holy Spirit to pray what I cannot naturally pray myself. Forgiveness for those who know not what they do, that they may know the One who does yet still extends mercy to all.

One day, hopefully soon, we will have that world Amy sings of. Where right will always win.

A Bullet With Your Name On It

Well, I just hope. . .that one of those refugees coming soon to a town near you doesn't have a bullet with your name or a family members name on it. he said.

I stared at the screen in shock. I'd been scrolling through a student's Facebook posts on my work Facebook page when I ran across a photo of a oversized horse sculpture with the words Syrian Refugees on the body and the words ISIS on its head. I read the caption, the post was not originating with the student but they had re-posted it. It read In light of the fact that at least three of the terrorists in France have been identified as Syrian, we must ask if the Syrian refugees are fleeing from terror or if some of them are bringing the terror.

As I read the comments, someone mentioned a Trojan Horse, which referred to the sculpture. Not being familiar with the metaphor, I looked it up, and understood that the post was referring to their perceived idea that the Syrians were using the refugee situation as a cover to infiltrate and destroy countries. Being raised in the Middle East, my instant reaction was one of indignation and anger. I found myself trembling as I typed out an answer that I hoped would help the student to understand that a blanket statement such as that was outrageous and unacceptable. The student didn't reply but one of their friends began to challenge me.

In my first answer, I said I felt it was a sad conclusion to make, that each country including the US has citizens that make poor choices. In the US, there are regular school shootings but that doesn't make every American a potential shooter. I recommended they thoughtfully search to understand more about the Syrian refugees and would find most of them are innocent families fleeing a horrendous war that has overtaken their country. I shared an article that talked about their humanity.

The person's reply was combative, basing it on their experience in the Middle East, and questioning my assumptions. I assured them that I too had lived in the Middle East and I apologized for their poor experience. Then he replied with the statement I began the post with. The shaking increased. Who was this person, with such hatred in their hearts, that they painted an entire region black due to prejudices?

I love that America fights wars for justice. I love that America is concerned about the women and children and goes in to rescue those trapped between countries in war, whether or not they are their own. I don't love this mindset, though, that America is superior to other countries.

As I pondered the person's replies, a thought came to mind. This must be how God feels when His character is misrepresented. When Satan influences events and horrible things happen, we tend to instinctively blame God because He didn't protect us or we believe He allowed the things to happen. The Syrian refugees should not be blamed for the Paris attacks. Those attacks were carried out under the influence of Satan. The Syrian refugees are fleeing similar horrors in their home countries. I imagine God's heart must break as He longs to comfort the children, the women, the men, who are frightened and scared and will risk death for freedom and safety.

Another thought was close behind. I am ready to take the bullet. I don't want to die. I want to live and be happy and help others as much as I can. I don't believe every refugee family is a potential terrorist. I hope that regardless of the situation, I can take ahold of God's strength and say Let them come, let us show them God, and if after they have seen His love they choose to harm us, then we die serving Him.

Jesus made this decision over 2,000 years ago. He stood there, silent, in the garden as His closest friend and the angry rabble came, accusing Him, betraying Him, despising the gift of salvation He offered them. He stood there, silent, as they shoved the sharp thorns on His head, crudely twisted into a crown, as they mocked Him. He lay there, silent, as they pounded long steel nails into His gentle hands, then thrust the cross heavily into the ground. He hung there, silent, as they gathered below and jeered at Him, laughing at His ripped and torn body, sneering in their self-righteous selves.

The words He spoke were simple. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He knew but they didn't, the significance of what was happening. He knew they were choosing to reject Him and even in His agony, He still pitied them. This was love at its heart. Love that gave all in return for nothing.

I am getting ready to return to the Middle East next year. I am well aware that a bullet can end my life even though where I will be is removed from immediate danger. Nothing is guaranteed except for this. This is life eternal, that they may know Thee and Jesus Christ Whom Thou has sent. John 17:3 This is what I need to share.