THE NEW WORLD

     I'm back.  I'm in Canada.  You can only imagine how weird this feels!  When Kara, Sarah and I landed in Pearson airport, Toronto, we started to ask each other the usual questions and then laughed because we didn't have to ask them anymore...

How much money should we pull out at the airport?

Are you sure Emma confirmed who would pick us up at the airport?

... and then the horrible moment where we remembered that we did not fill out a visa application for this country yet... followed by the hysterical moment where we realize that we are entering Canada and don't need a visa!

     None of us were quite sure we were ready to be back in our old world, to the extent that we were relieved to fly Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to Toronto instead of Canada Air!
   
     But now, here I am.  

     At first I wasn't sure how to approach this new season in my life after my return.  But I am choosing to look at it as a new country and a new adventure.  I felt a moment of fear when I first thought of returning to Canada, to the same places as before, to the same challenges and struggles and temptations.  I thought about how much I had learned and grown in the past 9 months and felt another twinge of fear that I would return back to the same spiritual and emotional levels of before.

     And then I remembered that I serve a God who continually does new things.  I may be in the same physical locations as last year, but I have changed and so have the people here.  Life is not stagnant.  I also remembered some words that a wise woman at Jubilee Health Center told me:  God has given me a backpack over the course of GlobeTREK.  He has been placing in it different tools and equipment that I will be able to pull out and use in the future.  These past 9 months have not been a dream, but have affected and shaped me in many wonderful and real ways which won't disappear when I return to Canada.  And as I move forward in life, I will continue to learn and grow, utilizing and adding to the stash in my backpack.
   
     So I face forward into the future, trusting the God who never leaves me nor forsakes me and who does infinitely beyond all I can think or imagine.  As I look forward to a summer at home, and then my final year at Prairie, I am excited to see what God will do in and through and around me.  I wonder how He will use the skills and truths He has placed in my life or the past while.  Every day the world is new with hope and potential!

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."  II Timothy 1:7

Goodbyes and Hellos

     Goodbye Cape Town and Hello to Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Cairo and Istanbul!  I flew out of Cape Town on the night of April 26th and rejoined my fellow GlobeTREKkers, Kara and Sarah, in Kenya.  From there we ventured through Ethiopia, Egypt and now Turkey.   It has been really hard for me to say goodbye to South Africa because it has become such a part of me over the past six months.  God has used this place in a special way to teach me about life, myself, and other people.  I know how vague and sappy it sounds to say that a place has really changed your life, so I want to elaborate a little more and tell you just a couple of the ways that my life has been enriched by my time here.
 1)   Present-future thinker over a past-present thinker.  Too often I am a past-present thinker--where what has happened in the past, or what I did in the past, determines how I respond in the present.  For example, if I messed up yesterday, then I live out of shame and a need to compensate today.  I guess it basically comes down to some form of legalism.  However, as a present-future thinker, my past is covered in Christ.  This shapes my choices in light of my present identity in Him and what His plans and purposes are for the future.  I may have made a bad choice yesterday, but right now I can make the right choice with Him.
2)  The multi-dimensionality of life!  I have tended to define mission and the Christian life too narrowly--it is about Bible reading and having DMCs (deep meaningful conversations) and doing unpaid work for others and cleaning toilets and other similar things... you get the gist :)  But it is very depressing, discouraging, and disillusioning to define Christianity too narrowly and then confine yourself to only that.  Anyways, I have come to appreciate how mission and gospel encompass and elevate all areas of life.  My mentor, Caryn, played a big role in that as I saw her surf with non-Christian friends, diagnose and pray for patients at the health center, take time to talk to people, just laugh and have fun with friends, and be interested in everything from medicine to linguistics to culture to good books to surfing to... you name it!  And in all of this, God was at the center in a foundational, joy-giving way--not in an awkward, tacked-on way.  So now I leave Cape Town with a renewed understanding and a greater excitement for life coram deo.

     These are just a couple of the lessons I've learned in Cape Town.  There are more, but I won't burden you right now with an entire 6 months of soul work :)  It feels so good to be back with Kara and Sarah and to face a couple new adventures together before my feet hit 'home' again.  My runners and my traveling bags are getting rather dilapidated, but now they just need to last for one more flight!  See you tomorrow, Canada :)