Peace in the Whirlwind

Life seems a crazy whirlwind of lists and forms and emotions right now. On February 1st, I board a plane for Philadelphia for Peace Corps staging--orientation and immunizations. I will also have about half a day for sightseeing which I'm looking forward to since I have never been to Philadelphia. Then on the 3rd my staging group will board a bus that will take us to JFK in New York where our flight to Johannesburg leaves at 5:20PM EST. We will arrive in South Africa at 5:45PM UTC on February 4th. Johannesburg is 7 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time (8 hours for the Central Time Zone, etc).

Currently there are several pages of lists--To-Do lists, packing lists, shopping lists, reading lists--that fill the notebook on my nightstand. At times it feels as though every time I cross something off a list, I find one or two things to add to it. The stack of forms to be completed seemed a mile high initially; though, I think I have finally worked through them all. And the emotions range from pure excitement, to pure shock, to pure "I must be crazy."

In the last weeks, I've had the blessing of spending Christmas with my family and New Year's with a dear friend from high school, attending the wedding of my college roommate, and visiting good friends from Portland days. It has been a good few weeks, and I will treasure all of these memories dearly.

Throughout pre-service training (8-10 weeks), I will have limited access to email and telephone. If you would like to keep correspondence with me through snail mail, please send me an email or message me on Facebook and I will send you my address.

Please pray that God will continue to be the author of this journey. Pray that I will embrace peace in the midst of the whirlwind. Pray that I will enter into this new adventure humbly, that my mind and my heart will be open and willing to learn. Pray that I will truly embrace what it means to live simply and love radically. Pray that my feet will be like those who bring the good news.

Blessings and peace upon you.