Onward We Go

The Adventure Continues 2018

Let me start out by apologizing.  I sincerely regret any discomfort or hurt feelings Jim and I likely inflicted through the years while attempting to reconcile the "old us" and the "new us."  It was not a pain-free process for our friends and family or for us.  No doubt we were offensive as we tried to verbally process our new unconventional view of life from a global perspective.

Here's the deal.  Back in 1986, Jim and I first embarked on this spiritually treacherous journey, not unlike Bilbo (aka The Hobbit), who was informed by a loving and fatherly Gandalf that there was no guarantee that Bilbo would even return, adding that if he did, he would certainly never be the same.  Packing up our few meager possessions, taking our ten-month-old baby with us, we gave up everything familiar and comfortable and went to Guatemala during their civil war years.

Returning in 1990 we were already irreversibly changed.  Somehow we muddled through that year of furlough in Ohio, quickly learning to keep our pondering to ourselves as it became apparent that people could not comprehend the transformation that had occurred in our hearts and minds, right down to our core values and even our ways of interacting socially.  We asked tough questions, attempting to recruit more volunteers for the cause of world evangelization, receiving only blank stares in return, and sometimes we felt the sting of contempt from people who were offended by the change in us.

The same thing happened when we returned on short summer breaks and again when we lived in Ohio in 2003-2004, but to a lesser degree.  Maybe the contrast between our mission-field selves and our American selves was blurred because it was a temporary situation.  After pondering this a while, I suspect that on a very subconscious level we chose to blend in and live like Americans.  "When in Rome...." and all that.

Then came the infamous move to Michigan in 2014.  Nothing had changed in the good old U.S. of A.  Like Bilbo, we returned to find our fellow Americans just as we ourselves used to be prior to 1986, concerned about creature comforts, pondering which restaurant to try, how to make house improvements, and deciding what fun thing to pursue over the weekend.

“We are plain quiet folk, and ... have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit 

People thought we should embrace the blessings of a climate controlled home and be thankful, but we didn't, and we weren't.  Speaking for myself, I guess I resisted the urge to jump in fully.

To me "becoming fully American" again was impossible.  Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful for my US passport, and I still get a lump in my throat when I try to sing the national anthem, but beyond that, it's a mixed bag.  I suppose I am now pledged to be a global citizen, more concerned with what is happening in the kingdom of God than what is happening in local or national politics.  My true citizenship is in heaven.  I find it bothersome to declare allegiance to a flag that I'd like to believe I would heartily reject if my Christian duty and obedience to Jesus' leading would ever demand such a drastic sacrifice.

I am ashamed that in four years, my life has developed its own pace marked by occasional overdoses of leisure and comfort, when my heart is tempted to dwell on things of a temporal nature, forgetting that there are still more adventures waiting to be shared.  This calendar year we were cured of the monotony of another Michigan winter, escaping to southern Mexico for the first couple of months, and then spending the next few weeks in Singapore (and Jim in Thailand afterward).

"I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone."  

                                  Gandalf, J.R.R. Tolkien, An Unexpected Party, The Hobbit

"He often used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep and every path was its tributary. 'It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to.'"

Frodo Baggins

J.R.R. Tolkien, Three Is Company, The Fellowship of the Ring 

Onward we go... Thankful to have Jim Loker by my side in these grand adventures of faith and obedience, we are off to Mexico again April 10th, willing to put to death our fleshly comforts for whatever lies ahead the rest of the month.

(Edited to add it was a grand adventure at that!  Somehow I failed to ever publish these musings before we left for Mexico.  Now I have new chapters to write in this epic story God is revealing to us.)