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View from the Square

Today…I have invested time in people that I do not know while pursuing something so ordinary and frustratingly convoluted that I’m a wee bit raw. So…while trying to wrap up my switch to Georgia car tags (round three of this conversion) I met an older couple who were truly sweet and slow moving; a “biker chick” who plopped down next to me and really needed to be acknowledged and heard; several Hall County Tag Office employees (all very nice and helpful and…apologetic); a German expat who just happens to know my best friend from Georgia Southern University, and a few other folks along the way. 

I avoided getting a parking ticket due to the overlong wait of connecting Georgia tag folks with Kansas title folks. Then bumped across the town square to Inman Perk…a kitschy coffee shop that is sheltering my frazzled soul as I wait for one more tag connection to be made. On foursquare…I am almost the Mayor of the Hall County tag office. The sun is out, the natives are moseying, and I am restless (read “crabby”.)

I’ve been here almost a month and the position at Adventures in Missions is fluid…and I’m asking God quite a bit about his purpose and plan. Such great people to work with and for makes this ambiguity a bit easier medium in which to swim. I’ve met Kansans in unexpected places-including in Charlotte, NC, on business.  Even had the privilege of joining the Eskew-family summer shebang; meeting cousins, aunties, uncles, and more for the first time in too long of time.  Met up with my favorite next-door neighbors from Kansas in Atlanta’s Little 5 Points arts district Saturday. These are kindnesses and I appreciate them so. They ease the reality of the tough side of the move.

 
Madi popped in for most of a week of rest, floating about the pool, kayaking, and going to work with me. And then she left Saturday afternoon and I cried all the way through Atlanta on my way back to the apartment. Kenan called last night while I was walking a neighbor’s dog. More tears. I missed Clara’s birthday…Katie, Dave, and Big John’s pictures made me laugh and again wonder why I’d been called away from the familiar into such waiting, dependence, and trust. 

 

And then a new friend invited me over for a glass of wine and I was able to listen to her heart. I missed one call this weekend-one chance to do good-but it turned out better than if I had heard the phone and tried to help. Met new neighbors in a bucket pour of rain. Read further into the reality behind why Adventures in Missions exists, dove deeper into my “quiet time”, cleaned the loo. These are all good things. 

The conclusion of this view from the southern square:  I need you-your prayers, your calls and notes (Thank you so much, April! You have no idea…), your hard questions. The landscape is sure and true, but my place in it is still a mystery. I know that it was time to move and that Adventures in Missions had captured my heart. The team from Cambodia comes this week to prep for their great move to Phnom Penh. Adventure’s Kenya Initiative is on the ground and already at work with helping to create stable self-sustaining communities among the internally displaced people in that country.  The team is addressing the 5 Areas of Need expressed by the “refugees” themselves. The “Japan Response” will send a new team in September while the Alabama and NOLa teams continue clearing debris and working to heal a devastated land.

What do I have to cry about? Why am I such a weenie?  Haven’t I moved a bazillion times before? I think that I am hoping for the same things that the folks in Cambodia, Kenya, Japan, and the good old USA want…need-community, home, a place to belong, a job/a call to do well, and the familiar faces of friends and storefronts-like the ones that line the square in downtown Gainesville, Georgia. 

I’ll be sending the first ripple of support letters this week-invitations to be a part of bringing water, offering hope and dignity, living intentionally with the hodge-podge of gifts given. It’s time…past time really. You are friends-family. And if I’ve heard anything in this season, it is to ask for help and to lower the privacy fences around my little heart that fear would like to fortify. If the letters annoy you, please just let me know and I will remove you from that address list. 

And if you can, please pray. I do not want to waste the opportunity given. I’m just not sure-correction-I AM CLUELESS about my place in the Adventures organization. I am, however, sure of the ministry to which I have been called-one that has no department, program, phone extension, or strategic plan. I have been called to love and support these folks heading on and off of the field, working logistics, answering phones.  To open up my home and Legos and library as a safe place for folks to land.  This “Kingdom Dream” is so clear and is so needed. After that, the call is as wide open as the view from the Konza …wide open.

 
Join me.

Exodus 33:14
God said, “My presence will go with you. I’ll see the journey to the end.”
The Message (MSG)