Sunday, 7 April: Last Day of Retreat

I got to sleep in later the usual on Sunday. The roosters must have taken the morning off or my body had adapted and tuned them out. After breakfast we had a short session with John Hawbaker. A part of the session included me telling my story of how I came to work in the missions office, so I'll tell it here. It is a long story so please bear with me (Who am I kidding? You've already beared with me this long. J ).

Picture of a blue duiker (pron. "dike-er") to hold you over until the next picture.

To preface the story, please read Luke 5:1-11. This is the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. The key verse here is verse 11, "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him."

I love trail running—even now that I've given up competitive running, I still enjoy running through the woods with trees flying past me on the left and right. I had a philosophy professor at Juniata College, James Roney, who upon hearing that I liked running asked if I ever felt like with each breath I took, the "breath of God" was entering into my body. This question completely transformed the way I look at running. Now I look at trail running as a way to connect with spiritually God.

I do a lot of running at Gifford Pinchot State Park. There are 16.5 miles of trails and I have run every single mile of them at least once. The only problem with running at Pinchot is that many of the trails are extremely muddy (like lose your shoe muddy) and have standing water for most of the year. Even running them during the winter and early spring can be difficult.

During my many years of trail running, I've developed pretty good strategies for running on muddy trails. Usually it's best to run along the edge of the trails to avoid going into the ankle deep mud. Your mind tells your feet that this is the best route to take. However, at the right temperature, the mud in the middle of the trail is frozen because there is more water there. In these situations it is more advisable to run straight down the middle of the trail despite your mind telling you otherwise.

Following God’s will is a lot like this. It’s counter-intuitive to what your mind thinks is right. My life is the perfect example of this.

I graduated from Juniata College with a B.S. in Mathematics. Not only did I plan to go on to graduate school and had scored a perfect 800 on the math section of the GRE, but I was accepted into a Ph.D. program at the University of Florida. Every fiber in my body and mind was telling me that this was what I was supposed to do. Okay, enough bragging about myself. This is where the story starts to get interesting.

Part of my summer included doing an internship at Texas A&M University (Gig'em Aggies!) which was a grad school prep course where I was getting paid to learn. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. The week before I left for this program, I learned that due to cuts in federal funding, Florida had to cut scholarships and I would have to pay my entire way. The other big shock happened on the first day of my internship. The math professor told us to open our books to a certain chapter and said that we should have covered everything in the book up to that point in our undergraduate courses. I had no clue what I was looking at and began flipping back through previous chapters until I found where I had left off at. I finally found that place—10 chapters back! Now not only was I going to have to pay for my entire schooling, but I would also have to take remedial classes which would add at least another year to my schooling. It was pretty clear that God was telling me He had bigger plans for me than teaching at a university.

Yep, that is an academic building that says "Gig'em"

I returned home really unsure of where I was headed, but with a renewed sense of trusting God to lead me where He wanted me to go. During the months after deciding not to pursue my doctorate, I applied to different jobs all over the United States. Most I never heard back from. I didn't have the stellar résumé. Mine was built around getting into a doctoral program not getting a job. I got a couple phone interviews, but they never turned out well. I could be having the best interview in the world and would suddenly self-destruct right at the end. It was a hard time for me.

After 6 months, I really needed a job since the deferment period of my student loans had run out. It was late October so I took the easiest job I could find, a package handler at UPS. For the next 6.5 months, I worked the 4:00 am to 8:00 am shift unloading tractor trailers at a rate of around 1300 packages an hour.

By June, I was ready for a change. Literally anything that didn't involve putting boxes onto a conveyor belt. Money was another issue. After subtracting gas and student loans costs from my paycheck, I was making a meager $10 a day.

Then one Sunday during Sunday School the teacher, Donna Sturr, mentioned that there was a data entry intern position available where she worked. I jumped on it. The irony was that she had mentioned the same intern job the previous summer and I had politely declined because I thought data entry was boring and beneath my great mathematical mind. Now my circumstances caused me to stop running on the edge of the trail and start running down the middle—right where God intended for me to be.

Remember when I said data entry was boring? Well, it was. For 3 months, I did nothing but compare church directories with a database. But I was good at it. I finished updating the database (with the help of another intern) and there was still money left in the grant, so I took on other jobs. I battled the database to find a way to create a denominational directory. I updated all the information on the “Find a Church” function on the website despite not knowing a lick of JavaScript code. I even came up with a project on my own researching church attendance going back as far as 1930.

At one point one of the two Executive Secretary positions opened up and I was given the opportunity to interview for it. I prayed about it and politely declined the offer. The position involved a lot of event planning. It wasn't me. More importantly, it wasn't where God wanted me to be.

I continued working on my odd projects until I was essentially given notice that they could only keep me for a few more weeks because the money from the grant was running out. They really wanted to keep me, but there was no money.

When I had two weeks left, my boss at the time, Pam, approached me and informed me that the Human Resources Manager in the missions department was looking for an assistant. He had asked Pam if she thought I'd be interested in the position. I had no experience in missions outside of being a part of a short term missions trip to New Mexico and absolutely no knowledge or training in human resources. I prayed about it and felt God nudging me to interview for the job. I was a bit weary of the interview due to my prior experiences, but this interview couldn't have gone better.

When I was hired, my boss, Jonathan, told me they had 6 months of work for me. Now after 1 ½ years, I'm still there and really feel an affirmation that I'm where God wants me to be. Now back to Mozambique.

The rest of the session was a group discussion of Paul and Silas's miraculous escape from prison. We then had a short break before having a worship service at 10:30 am. Piet, Ria, and Sakkie joined us. After singing some hymns and hearing a short message for John Hawbaker, we closed with communion.

Sakkie was feeling better.

When the service was over, we had free time until 4:00 pm. At that time everyone was going to head up to the house where we would be having a braai (pron. "brie") (A braai is a South African/Afrikaans version of a BBQ that lasts for several hours and with lots and lots of meat consumption.).

Before heading to the house, I walked around camp looking for something to do. I found Micah playing by himself in a dirt pile. Today he was "Koala". He had a red excavator that he made out of Duplo blocks. I asked him what he was making. He told me it was a tree house for Heather. Becky came over to get Micah to head up to the house. As I stood up, I came face to face with the scariest creature so far of my trip. It was a spiny-backed orb weaver spider inches from my face.

It was quite intriguing upon closer inspection.

It took the walk to the house for heart rate to return to normal. When I got to the house, only a few people were already there. Julie was in the pool and Heather was sitting along the edge with her feet in the water. She called me over to join them and Lois came along too. The water was nice and refreshing after a hot day.

Even the dogs wanted to join us at the pool.

Sakkie came and prepped the fire while Ria brought out water, lemon juice, and iced tea. A little while later she brought some chips (french fries) and dip. Sakkie and Piet cooked and served strips of steak and pork roast which we ate with our fingers. Judging by the quantity of meat, the braai appeared like it was going to be our dinner. Unbeknownst to us, this was only the appetizer despite the fact that we powered through numerous cuts of meat while talking and singing (Father Abraham was the highlight of the singing).

Everyone got into Father Abraham, even me (far right).

During this time I had a good conversation with Julie and Heather about future plans. None of us had a clear idea of what our futures had in store. I asked what their dream jobs would be. Heather said she would really like to work for herself, maybe own a bed and breakfast. Julie was unsure of her dream job (I jokingly asked if she wanted to teach my boss, Jonathan, how to grow blueberries.). She sprung the question back on me. I had no idea. I replied that I was still discerning what God wants me to do. I believed I was where God wanted me to be right now, but I was unsure about the long-term. I believed I was called to missions, but not sure of what capacity or role. At this point in my life, I was just trying to be open to wherever God was leading me.

Steve interrupted the braai to direct us into the dining room for the main course. As we gathered, we noticed large T-bone steaks, pork chops, 24-hour salad, and gem squash waiting for us. I had a really difficult time finishing my meal (but still managed dessert which was a piece of chocolate cake).

If you think this is a lot of meat, you should have seen the amount of meat we had already eaten.

After stuffing ourselves with copious amounts of meat, we returned to camp for our last night's devotions. We sang three hymns in an effort to wake people up. Tonight was Jake and Nancy's turn to share. Since Jake is the Regional Administrator, he gave updates on the BIC church in Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. After prayer, everyone went straight to bed.