Make Us Ready

The busyness of Winter Conference is over. Check. Visas applications delivered. Check. (Keep praying they arrive in time!) It's too rainy for the combine-driving lesson, that will have to wait. And considering I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to engineering, design, or import laws, it seems my useful tasks are becoming fewer and fewer, at least for awhile. Which is why I've had several quite relaxing days, unlike Jonathan. It's been nice, especially since I've been recovering from a cold contracted over the weekend.  

Speaking of the weekend, we've been enjoying all the family time while in the area! Friday night we celebrated Jonathan's birthday with the Sauder clan who gifted him this:

A lego set of Big Ben. This kept him occupied for awhile! All in all, it was a fun time! Saturday we repeated the celebration, but with my family, by taking him to Flat Top and then Sweet Cece's frozen yogurt (see the trend, he likes to choose places that encourage you to build your own masterpiece). Sunday was spent at Congerville church which is going through a rough time, so please keep praying for God's healing power and unchanging love to surpass all the hurt and transform the pain to glory!

As the weekend wound down, there were definite themes God was starting to highlight. And over the past few days, as I've had some extra time on my hands, He's continued to reveal the same.  

Preparation. In one week, the crazy travel schedule begins. So many unknowns, so many arrangements to be made. And yet more than all that, my prayer has been for God to prepare our hearts. From the beginning, we wanted this job to be more than occupational experience. We wanted to discover new depths of knowing God both personally, and as a couple, and also allow that transforming experience to open our eyes to how God wants to utilize our time abroad to glorify His Name in the nations we're given opportunity to visit. Please join in praying for God's anointing on us during the next week as we approach launch date.  

Make Us Ready

Harvest Bashta

Let there be oil in my lamp,

Let the fire not go out, 

When I hear the Bridegroom comes.

Make us ready.  

So take my lamp set it on a hill,

Set it on a lamp stand,

I won't be hidden.

I'll be dripping with the oils of Love.

So take my lamp set it on a hill,

Set it on a lamp stand,

I won't be hidden.

Make us ready.

Flexibility--which inherently means some stretching

We're learning to respond with an attitude of flexibility.  Why is that so hard?  Does anyone else find the ability to react to unexpected changes or new assignments with an air of easy adjustment extremely difficult to master?  What is it about us as humans that draws us to the comfortable and easy?

That said, in the last week, our travel plans have changed often along with our daily activities.  In that way, every day is a new adventure.  Take yesterday, for example.  I never would have thought I would ever have to sit through an all-day conference featuring speakers on different aspects of farming--from the best equipment available to cover seeds once they're planted, to the latest developing technology for measuring crop yield, to the advantages of planting beans in giant checkerboard fashion rather than more traditional rows.  Fascinating stuff.  Some of it.  Okay, a little bit of it.  Most of it was over my head.  But I did manage to pick up on a few things (Like the fact that a stalk of corn only has one ear when ready for harvest.  Which makes me wonder, why do we always draw it with a bunch of ears?).  Anyway, Jonathan loved it.  On the way home he said, "I could learn about anything in that amount of detail!"  Well, for me, it still falls under the new-experiences-expanding-my-horizons category, and there's only so much farm talk I can take.  There was a steak lunch included, so it wasn't all bad.

At one point during the speakers, I sneaked out for a change of scenery and went to the post office.  (Yes, that speaks volumes about my interest level considering going to visit the local post master was exciting.)  Actually, I needed to mail our applications for a Brazilian visa.  So, we can all pray that the process goes smoothly and we get those without much hassle.

Regarding travel plans, our launch date is now February 6 (more flexibility!).  We're pleased to have another week here in the temperatures plunging dangerously close to zero!  No really!  In spite of the cold, extra time with family and friends, not to mention more time to prepare for take off, is much appreciated!  The plan is still New Zealand first, followed by South America, and the schedule still allows for a few days here and there in California since our trips will be in 10-day to 2-week chunks.  Talk about flexibility!  I guess it's good to be getting practice.

It's funny, another word for flexible, is yielding.  I've heard that word several times this last week--especially last weekend as dear Hannah publicly committed her life to Christ.  In our spiritual journey, yielding to the Spirit is how we learn to know God.  As hard as it is to surrender because it breaks us, it always leads to revelation!  And there is nothing greater than experiencing God as He reveals His character!

Venturing into New Territory

New territory meaning not so much exotic locations, but rather bitter cold and gray cubicles.

Arriving in Illinois last week, we spent the weekend catching up with family and friends, despite the icy weather.  Yes, I said icy.  We're not in southern California anymore.  Brrr!

This frigid morning we found ourselves at work for the first official day of our new job.  Jonathan fit right in with all the engineer-speak and is already having fun hashing out ideas and working on exciting projects.  This is all so new to me--an eight to five job, with meetings and conference calls, cubicles and coffee, and a great majority of the workday spent staring at a computer screen.  I'm still working on finding my footing and figuring out exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing.  We've been able to talk with a few contacts in South America which has helped us firm up our travel schedule, at least for the first round of sojourning.  I've started to look at travel details and as a result am slightly cross-eyed as I type this!  Dates, timezones, airports, layovers, arrival and departure times have succeeded in tying my brain up in knots and also turning it into oatmeal (points for recognizing the Adventures in Oddessy quote--it's Jason, also an adventurer!)  Something about sitting in a cubicle and staring at the same screen for hours on end has numbed me.  I'd almost forgotten we're on an adventure!  It doesn't take much to remind me as the screen comes back into focus and words like Auckland, Córdoba, and Sao Paulo jump out at me.  New experiences up ahead!

Our launch date is January 29th, less than 2 and a half weeks away.  The first round begins with a week in New Zealand, followed by a night at the beach cottage in dear old Manhattan Beach.  Yes, you read that right!  Cheers erupt from the Californians!  It looks like we'll be traveling through that giant airport just up the road from us, LAX, now and then, which means a few days home here and there!  And trust me, we won't be taking that lovely 70 degree weather for granted anymore!

The Adventure

Frodo, an adventurer if there ever was one, from the allegory The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, quoted his also adventuring uncle,

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"

Amid the whirlwind of the past few weeks, we've come to catch the spirit of adventure Frodo and Bilbo refer to.  What seemed a routine email to a former employer, turned into a crazy idea, which suddenly loomed as an actual possibility, which then, before we could even catch our breath, became a reality.  When Jonathan was first pitched the idea of spending this Spring traveling the southern hemisphere, he thought I'd never agree to it.  When I did, rather excitedly, we decided not to let our hopes rise, since it was still just a fanciful theory and facing great odds.  We agreed to let the doors open or close... and just be willing.  Soon Jonathan had a leave of absence from USC allowing him to postpone his thesis defense and graduation until the fall semester, I was quitting my jobs, and we faced a very real adventure.  

Throughout those days of doors opening and things falling into place, God kept speaking to us about seasons.  "For everything there is a season..." said the wisest man who ever lived.  That resonated.  Our God, the one who first called us to lives of adventure--and trust me, any life fully dedicated to Him is an adventure--was now opening the way for us to, in faith, leave the comfortable, predictable, "make-sense" life we lived in our little beach cottage in southern California, at least for a season.  

So, here we are.  Tomorrow we embark on our sojourn.  The thing about sojourning is that it's temporary.  And there's nothing like leaving your comfort zone to realize that this entire life we get so caught up in is really only temporary.  We hope to learn that lesson--and by learn, I mean experience, this isn't book-learning anymore--and so many more.