Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Home
One tough decision down, a lifetime to go. I will be making Columbus my home for the next while. While I will inevitably miss my roots, I am at peace with my decision to branch out beyond Wayne county. It feels like I am beginning to find my stride here and that is a good feeling. So thanks to the fine folks at CRIS, la Turbina, and Columbus Menno, who have made me feel so incredibly welcomed and of course to my two roommates who have graciously and generously made space for me, and of course thanks to my family for being supportive, even when having me home would be easier for you. I feel at peace. The future will be a challenge and an adventure, sin duda, but I look forward to what it may bring and I give gracias a Dios for the wonderful friends who enrich my existence. You know who you are :)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Tropicana...Can I get a decision please??
It seems the older we get the more concentrated our decisions become - packed with the potential to more greatly alter life's path, perhaps because there is less time to water down those decisions if they turn out a bit too sour or a bit too sweet. As a girl, the decisions were easy - one cookie or two? - which outfit to wear to church? But now that one cookie or two can mean the difference between one pound or two?? And which outfit to wear to church is by far dwarfed by which city to go to church in?? Which graduate school to go to?? The decisions keep getting harder, and now my mom can't make them for me....
It's up to me to make my decisions and then live with them...or perhaps just make decisions I can live with. And that's hard to do when you don't know how they are going to turn out, what flavor life is going to take after that decision is poured....because life isn't one can of decision and 3 cans of time, stir and enjoy...Life is just concentrated decisions...not orange juice :)
It's up to me to make my decisions and then live with them...or perhaps just make decisions I can live with. And that's hard to do when you don't know how they are going to turn out, what flavor life is going to take after that decision is poured....because life isn't one can of decision and 3 cans of time, stir and enjoy...Life is just concentrated decisions...not orange juice :)
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Redirecting, redirecting
So I noticed it has been 4 months since my last blog! And I decided that was shameful so here is an update (not that anyone other than myself still reads this thing :). I have now been working as a Bilingual Help Me Grow service coordinator for 3 months. The job is not without it's challenges, and often I find myself asking "What am I doing working with children?" For those of you who know me, it is no surprise that I have no experience working with children and neither is it my passion in life.
Often my work seems more about having the right form filled out at the right time, and not so much about connecting families with the resources they so urgently need. It's a challenge not being from Columbus and not knowing what organizations do...in other words, not knowing what resources are available or how to tell folks how to get there...aka directions, something I am awful at. If not for my precious GPS I would not ever know where I was or where I needed to go.
And that's how I feel in life too....I wish I had a GPS to tell me what road to take, what turn to make. But God whispers softly, God leaves me the space to make my own decisions, to get lost. And I seek God's guidance and yet feel lost...and comforted in that even if my choice is perhaps not the perfect path, God is at work in it even when I can't see or understand the movement of the divine.
Often my work seems more about having the right form filled out at the right time, and not so much about connecting families with the resources they so urgently need. It's a challenge not being from Columbus and not knowing what organizations do...in other words, not knowing what resources are available or how to tell folks how to get there...aka directions, something I am awful at. If not for my precious GPS I would not ever know where I was or where I needed to go.
And that's how I feel in life too....I wish I had a GPS to tell me what road to take, what turn to make. But God whispers softly, God leaves me the space to make my own decisions, to get lost. And I seek God's guidance and yet feel lost...and comforted in that even if my choice is perhaps not the perfect path, God is at work in it even when I can't see or understand the movement of the divine.
Friday, January 16, 2009
A New Beginning
So if you follow my blog you are probably wondering what happened since I have been ever so lazy about posting for about the last month. Well, I am no longer in Bolivia, which is part of what inspired me to change the title of my blog.
The past month has been a blur of traveling, spending the holidays with family, getting back into the groove of milking cows again, and beginning the search for a new job and a new beginning in Columbus.
As many of you probably have guessed, searching for a new job in the middle of an economic crisis is no easy task. That being said, I feel hopeful that a door will open, and if not I will have to make the best of where I am and what I am doing until an opportunity presents itself. This is not to say that I am sitting on my couch waiting for that opportunity to just plop itself down next to me; I am doing my part to look for opportunities, but with the tranquility of knowing that I cannot force things to happen.
So I find myself in this kind of weird space of being somewhere I wasn't planning to be, trying to find a new start. For those of you who know what it is like to have your friends scattered all over, you can relate to the feeling of diaspora - it is hard to be home, knowing that I am "home" but that many of my friends are far from where I am. I am excited for the future and I am enjoying being in a space where I feel supported and loved, and at the same time I am looking forward to being surrounded by new friends and a new community, a new beginning.
The past month has been a blur of traveling, spending the holidays with family, getting back into the groove of milking cows again, and beginning the search for a new job and a new beginning in Columbus.
As many of you probably have guessed, searching for a new job in the middle of an economic crisis is no easy task. That being said, I feel hopeful that a door will open, and if not I will have to make the best of where I am and what I am doing until an opportunity presents itself. This is not to say that I am sitting on my couch waiting for that opportunity to just plop itself down next to me; I am doing my part to look for opportunities, but with the tranquility of knowing that I cannot force things to happen.
So I find myself in this kind of weird space of being somewhere I wasn't planning to be, trying to find a new start. For those of you who know what it is like to have your friends scattered all over, you can relate to the feeling of diaspora - it is hard to be home, knowing that I am "home" but that many of my friends are far from where I am. I am excited for the future and I am enjoying being in a space where I feel supported and loved, and at the same time I am looking forward to being surrounded by new friends and a new community, a new beginning.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Happy...Chicken Day?
Well, ok it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Turkey day, but it was still a pretty tasty member of the fowl family over which to give our thanks to God for the abundance of the year. Thanksgiving for this rag-tag batch of MCCers from all over the place (ok, just Canada the US and Zimbabwe), came on Saturday, but the preparations began on Friday. So we cooked and baked and prepared for 2 days, the shopping the bread and pie baking, peeling potatoes and snapping beans.
Usually I just make the mashed potatoes (a duty which my brother Bob has taken over in my absence) so this was my first true experience in being responsible for all of Thanksgiving…a rather daunting task indeed. We started out the day with apple dumplings and icecream and argentine sweet bread, but the full Thanksgiving meal boasted roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy (a mysterious miracle), sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, jello salad, pumpkin pie (yes, it was delicious perfection), and peanutbutter pie, complete with homemade bread. Thankfully it was truly tasty and worthy of the gut-wrenching state of filled-ness that follows eating more than you should because you just can’t stop yourself from gorging yourself on the once a year wonder that is Thanksgiving - an event made possible by teamwork, good company and good food :)
Usually I just make the mashed potatoes (a duty which my brother Bob has taken over in my absence) so this was my first true experience in being responsible for all of Thanksgiving…a rather daunting task indeed. We started out the day with apple dumplings and icecream and argentine sweet bread, but the full Thanksgiving meal boasted roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy (a mysterious miracle), sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, jello salad, pumpkin pie (yes, it was delicious perfection), and peanutbutter pie, complete with homemade bread. Thankfully it was truly tasty and worthy of the gut-wrenching state of filled-ness that follows eating more than you should because you just can’t stop yourself from gorging yourself on the once a year wonder that is Thanksgiving - an event made possible by teamwork, good company and good food :)
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