after a short interlude

I have slipped into an old habit of procrastination . . . and this includes everything. I am procrastinating studying Bangla, procrastinating writing emails, procrastinating writing on my blog.

I thought I could shake it. Alas . . .

This life in Dhaka is not at all what I expected. I knew that the amount of time I would be spending here is equal to the amount of time I spent on my internship in Kolkata, so I should have expected making lots of friends, having lots of experiences, but I just never foresaw any of this. I couldn't have imagined it. I'm glad God gives us one day at time.

This next month is going to be about a lot of transition. At the end of May, we will be returning to Kolkata where life as we will know it for the next three years will begin. It seems like I have been here a long time already, but these four months are only a part of the move. Soon the settling will happen.

This Friday, a couple who Melissa and I have come to know will be returning home to Alaska. They have been here since we have been here. They were our Thursday night plans . . . dinner and games at their apartment. I have been trying not to think too much about their leaving, but today my heart is sad. So begin the good-byes.

I have always seen myself as someone who blends into the crowd--never one who stands out or leads the crowd. Actually, I think it is quite a feat if someone remembers me. However, some of the people Melissa and I have come to know in this city are people of influence, and this I don't understand, little 'ole me from Amish-country Ohio. We can point to the steps of how we came to know the people we have, but when we were at a friend's house Saturday evening, gathered around talking with three people of political influence, all of whom are from different political parties within this country, I had to think, who am I and how did I get here?

I can see God working in the relationships we are building. I often feel like I have nothing to offer people in terms of gifts or influence--so why would people care to know me? Sometimes, I think of how in the States I have no influence or power, I don't eat at fancy restaurants or drive a super-nice car. I am satisfied with all my belongings, but what I have is nothing compared to what they have. I am just a little nobody. What makes me special? And I keep thinking, I have nothing to give but the hope God has given me. And I pray that I can give that away.

Please keep Melissa and I in your prayers, for wisdom, for love. God allows our paths to cross with others' paths for a reason. My greatest desire is to love people as Christ loved us, to be a friend, to be a catalyst for whatever God has in store. I can see strands of hope running through each of our relationships. It's a good view.

Always with hope . . .

"We still live in the unredeemed world, but we may walk with our heads held high; we know that the kingdom is coming because it has already come. We live within the creative tension between the already and the not yet, forever moving closer to the orbit of the former. We Christians are an anachronism in this world: not anymore what we used to be, but not yet what we are destined to be. We are too early for heaven, yet too late for the world. We live on the borderline between the already and the not yet. We are a fragment of the world to come, God's colony in a human world, his experimental garden on earth. We are like crocuses in the snow, a sign of the world to come and at the same time a guarantee of its coming."

- A Spirituality of the Road, by David J. Bosch