I was looking through my pictures of Cambodia , as I do many nights and I find myself in this same place every time. I look at the pictures and think about the memories tied to them. I think about the places in the picture. Sometimes I ever log on to google earth and explore the city. I find my home, I find Reaksa’s home,the school I taught at, and anything else I can think of.

It’s times like these that I wonder, is this feeling ever going to go away. Am I ever going to get to a place where it doesn’t hurt, because it still hurts, my heart hurts. I find it hard to talk with my friends in Cambodia because it makes it hurt even worse.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I am not happy here, I am. It feels so weird to know that this is where I need to be and where I want to be, but still want to be there just as badly. I don’t understand fully how this is possible. I like the life that I have built here and the people make it what it is. I love being in the same country as my family and the thought of living close to them someday. But for that to happen I have to choose.

It’s not realistic to think that one person can live two lives no matter how much that person may want to. It would be different if I had the means to visit whenever I wanted or go back and forth, but it’s just possible. And so I ask this question, time heals right?

I need some help with this because it is beyond me. If anyone has any insight please feel free to share. For know all I can do is pray that … I honestly don’t know what to pray for, guidance, healing, serenity, peace, I really don’t know. Thankfully we serve a God that knows what we need even when we can’t express it. With palms lifted upward I pray for God to be near and hear my prayers.

This will most likely be my final blog post on this particular blog. As you probably know, my time in Cambodia has ended, and I have been stateside for some time now. It has not been the easiest of transitions, as my blog “Restless” seems to point to. Now i find myself in Michigan at the beginning of another blessed adventure in service. But the pain is still there, and I venture to guess it will be for sometime to come.

In the quote above Brueggemann is referencing the following scripture:

“And the people of Israel groaned under their bondage, and cried out for help, and their cry under bondage came up to God. And Go d herd their groaning and God remembered his covenant…And God saw the people of Israel and God knew their condition.” Exod 2:23-25

I find beauty in this passage. Even though it is a passage about groaning and crying out, it’s even more so a passage about God hearing us where we are and knowing our condition. Tis offers me a great deal of comfort in this difficult time.

Before writing this blog i responded to a message sent to me by my Cambodian Brother Reaksa. In writing my response I felt great pain and sadness, this is a pain and sadness that extends to my very core. I will work through this pain the best that i can, but the one thing that I will not do is act like it doesnt exist.

It doesn’t do to bury things and try and act like you are ok, and this scripture shows us that there is grace in and through the crying out. This last post though it may be a sad way to end things (even though this is really just the beginning) is my crying out, this is my groaning.

I am moving on but I am still in a great deal of pain and that’s ok. I may be building new relationships but i still grieve the friendships that I have left behind. Time may move forward but a part of me will always long for those long tuk tuk drives, lunches spent dreaming and hoping, and of course the smiles and laughter of those beautiful children at the many children’s programs I worked at.

Even through all of this I know that this is not the end, I feel at peace about the fact that the same God that heard the cries in Egypt, is the same God that heard the cries of the maid servant Hagar, and so many more through out history hears my cries now. That same God knows my condition, and walks with me forward in my pain, and sadness, as well as in my excitement and joy.

May we all feel free to cry out when need be, and may we know that when we do there is a God that hears those cries, as soft as they may be, and knows our condition. May the love and peace of Christ be with us now and forever more. Amen.

At first I thought I was doing so well. I was hanging out with my family and catching up and everything seemed to be fine. I found myself asking, ” where is this culture shock that everyone talks about “. But I started noticing the other day that when ever people would ask me about Cambodia, my heart would sink just a little bit, they would ask me harmless questions like would you go back and as I was thinking about it I would feel tears welling up as I thought about things.

Here is the culture shock, now that the catching up is over and life settles, I find myself restless. Maybe this is just me, but I am realizing that I have left a life where things fit together and now I am in this middle place where I feel torn.

I am trying my hardest to fit back into life as best I can, but sometimes I feel like I am failing miserably, and it’s those times when i want nothing more than to be back in cambodia, where things were easy and made sense. I know all of this takes time and that it’s not easy. But what really makes it difficult is being in the in-between.

I was talking with my brother yesterday and he was asking me if I was given the chance to go back for another 16 months, would I? I told him that it would be a hard decision, made even harder by the fact that this right here and now isn’t real life. This is the in-between and this is not what it will be like in Michigan. So to be honest, right now is all about surviving the in-between, the restlessness, and feeling out of place, so that I can hopefully make it back to feeling some what normal, what ever that means or feels like.

The long lost blogger has returned, well sort of. It has been quite sometime since my last blog post. That most has to do with the massive changes that my life has under gone in what feels like a very short period of time.

I spent this past weekend connecting with the people of First United Methodist Church of Katy in Katy, Texas. I was offered the chance to speak at all three services there and gladly took it. It felt so good to look out into the congregation and see so many friendly faces. It felt even better to be able to connect with a church that has a been a huge supporter if my mission thus far.

As wonderful as it was to be there, this did not come with out it’s difficulties. Life as you may have surmised is in constant motion, and so things were not exactly as I had left them. Same changes were welcomed and in fact it was the things that didn’t change that may have been the hardest for me to deal with. Let me clarify.

When you leave a place for an extended period of time you expect things to be different. You expect people to have aged a bit and for things to maybe function in different ways. The difficulty comes when you come back and you encounter the things that have not changed. Ana example may in fact make this just a tad clearer.

Along with preaching three services on Sunday morning I was offered the chance to assit with the Sunday Night youth activities. I was essentially given freedom to lead the lesson time and to give a message of sorts. This felt eriely familiar as it was much like it had been before I left. Of course I came back a different person and the youth were different but the feeling was much the same.

I missed this feeling, talking with kids, sitting down and eating with them, leading them in activities and challenging them. This is no longer my job and though it was nice to have that experience again, I know that that will most likely never be my role again for any extended period of time. So even though it feels the same and is just as exciting as before it is clear to me that that
particular chapter is closed to me, and now belongs to someone else. It’s a hard thing to realize, especially when that passion hasn’t gone away.

Don’t get me wrong I am very excited about where my life is going, and what is in my future, but it can just be difficult to go back to a place where you used to fill a role, and know that’s not the case anymore.

I feel confident that FUMC of Katy will continue to support me in my ministry, and for this I am eternally grateful. I guess it’s just odd to think of myself as an outsider, even if I don’t feel like one. All this being said, I had a more than wonderful time hanging out with the youth seeing people that I had missed dearly, meeting new people and talking about my experience. It is so encouraging to know that there is a congregation full of people who wish you well and support you in what you are doing.

I am so thankful for the First United Methodist Church of Katy, and their support of me as I venture on to Detroit and beyond. It is helpful to know that there are loving people waiting embrace me and my ministry in what ever way they can. I pray that I can let go of what needs to be let go of, take on what needs to be taken, and find comfort and peace wherever that balance may be.

Here it is 5:45 in the morning, I can’t help but think about the fact that right now all my friends are getting ready to sit down to dinner and I find myself half a world away. I am currently in Atlanta for our mission intern mid terms.

Last night we had our orientation and opening service. Prior to arriving at the retreat center I stayed with a family in Atlanta. I went with them to church and it was different than what I as used to to say the least.

Sitting in the sanctuary that was brightly lit, reading hymns from the beloved Methodist hymnal I couldn’t help but. Feel at home. How is it possible to long for two places at the same time. I am so happy to be back, but I know it will take time to make sense of it all.

Now all the mission interns are gathered to share our experiences together and work towards moving forward together. What that means I don’t know that anyone of us know but hopefully as the week goes on that will become more clear.

For now we gather together as brothers and sisters, join together I pray that we may all find the peace that we are seeking. Peace of mind, for those loved ones we have left behind but still carry in our hearts. For the future and the unknown that lies before us. Peace of spirit, so that we are nit over come restlessness and we can be fully present and fully aware of what God is doing in our live.

May we all find comfort in community so that we can move forward in the love manifested in Jesus Christ, and share that love with everyone around in all that we do. Thanks be to God!

So its a constant struggle when something new is approaching. For months time has flown by, and now its seems to be inching on bringing me closer and closer to that plane that will carry me off into the wild blue yonder. (again dramatic, but what can I say I like flare)

I came across something tonight that seems a tad bit fitting, and I would like to share it with you. It is from “Deep Is the Hunger” by Howard Thurman. It is broken into three sections and after each section I will add my little thoughts before moving on.

“I Need Thy Sense of Time
Always I have an underlying anxiety about things.
Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends
and am completely without patience. It is hard for me to realize
That some growth is slow,
That all processes are not swift. I cannot always discriminate
Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,
Because my sense of time is dulled.
I measure things in terms of happenings.
O to understand the meaning of perspective
That I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure – of time.”

Right now is that in-between time, where there really is no sense of time. To think back on all that I have experienced in Cambodia seems like a life-times worth of experience. yet it feels like just yesterday I was stepping off the plane. Somethings have gone by in a blink and others have been painfully slow, but if there is one thing I have learned is that time is to be respected.

It should be respected and not taken for granted. It should be cherish and taken in. When we think of leisure we may often conjure the notion of laziness or unproductiveness, but there can be leisure without these things. This comes from being aware of what is around us, not living for the weekend or a particular point in time but by taking things as they come. If there is one thing I hope to hold on to as I travel back to the states, it is the Cambodian sense of leisure, of a life lived  not measured on terms of happenings, but on the perspective that is gained from simply living life, and loving others.

“I Need Thy Sense of Order
The confusion of the details of living
Is sometimes overwhelming. The little things
Keep getting in my way providing ready-made
Excuses for failure to do and be
What I know I ought to do and be.
Much time is spent on things that are not very important
While significant things are put into an insignificant place
In my scheme of order. I must unscramble my affairs
So that life will become order. O God, I need they sense of order.”

Its not just a sense of time that pray I can take with me but it is also this sense of order, its the life that I have made that does its best to dispense with the little things to make room for the big ones. Its the life that dreams big and then works to make those dreams a reality. Its the dreams like building Homes for Hope that I pray I can hold on to. No priorities will have to be inserted, I know this, and I’m ok with that, so long as opening the door to them doesn’t let in all the little things that I have done so well to steer clear of. My life here is pretty drama free, and I like it like that. Too many people live for it, they need conflict and confrontation to survive, I need simple. I need a sense of simple order.

“I Need They Sense of the Future
Teacher me to know that life is ever
On the side of the future.
Keep alive in me that forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge. Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or the present.
Grant me, O patient Father, they sense of the future
Without which all life would be sicken and dies.”

All of these things I cling to, the one thing that I don’t cling to is the person that I have become. Apart of me wishes that things could stay the same, that I could stay the same but thats not what we are called to do, that isn’t living life. We have to be open to change and embrace it, so long as it is for the better. Seeing as how I am not a perfect person, and pretty far from it, I need this sense of future, that beckons me to be a better person, to be more like Christ in my ways. The last thing I want to do is be stuck, mired in the thoughts of the past and what was. We surge forward not frozen in time, not static as if nothing could be better. If we aren’t moving forward then we aren’t living the life we were called to live. If we aren’t growing then what is the point of spirituality or religion. What is the Gospel if we are unchanged by its words and its lessons.

May we continually seek to find a divine sense of time, order and future. May we forget trying to control time and learn to respect it, to take it for what it is. May we order our lives in a way that keeps the little things from taking us away from the more important, kingdom building things. May we always have a sense of thy future, one that has us working every day to be better people, to live life and love others, the way we were meant to. All Thanks be to God!

We are into single digits, suit cases are filling up with stuff accumulated over 16 months of living in the wonderful place. Its gotten to the point in the packing stage where I have to seriously look at everything and ask, is this something I really need to take with me. (most of these items are books that I have read while here)

As we get closer and closer to that fateful fourth day of March when I will board a plane and leave those things that are most precious to me, the things that I wish more than anything else I could take with me, the people that have changed my life forever. As right as it feels to be moving on, and moving forward its never easy to leave people behind. It sure wasn’t easy leaving the great people of FUMC of Katy to travel here. I remember back to my last night with the youth and how hard it was to say good bye, and here in a few short weeks I will be seeing them again.

The sad thing is I know it will be more than 16 months before I see my Cambodian friends. Everyone always asks me “You will come back to Cambodia?” I tell them that if I do it will be at least 3 or 4 years. I know that seems like an eternity but the fact is that it isn’t. When I read the prayer above it struck a chord in my heart.

Cambodia is one of those places that sticks with you. Everyone I talk to that has come here tells me how much they love it and hope that they can come back. That is a tribute to Cambodia, its people and its culture. As sad as it may be to leave these wonderful friends they have truly become “indelibly engraven” on my heart. That is something that I happily take back to my friends and family back in the states. I come back a different person, a changed person, a person that has been moved by a force that is not easily forgotten. I have been moved by love.

Those who read my blog hopefully has noticed that I start just about every post off with a quote. This helps me focus my writing. I am the kind of person that can easily get lost in my own thoughts and the quote is a way that I can bring myself back when that happens. You may also realize that I rarely use scripture as my quote. It can sometimes be found within the text of my writing but is hardly ever the leading quote.

There are a few reasons for this, none of them being that I feel scripture unworthy of being quoted. If anything its the opposite, I find it very daunting a task because I hold it in such high regards. Scripture holds so much substance, and can be taken so many places that it sometimes can make staying on task even harder, which as I said before is a problem. It’s mostly like this because if I am going to use a scripture, most times I like to use chunks of it, and not just a simple verse as I have done tonight. To me context is super important when talking about Scripture and I feel like we run the risk of doing it a great disservice when we only view it in small 1 or 2 verse pieces. Notice I say that we run the risk, I did not say that it always happens.

What I have noticed is that when this happens, when scripture is pulled from the pages a few at a time to justify a cause or an idea it is usually not a positive cause or idea. We have all seen Scripture used to berate people, to tell them how horrible they are or what awaits them in eternity if they choose to “live in sin”. (As if we all don’t “live in sin” everyday) Scripture has been used to justify things like slavery, segregation, even war like attitudes. And this happens because people choose to take a verse or verses out of the scripture and hold them separate as if they hold more divinity than others.

So why tell you this? Well, last night I was doing my daily devotion from the “Disciplines 2011″ and the scripture above as apart of it. I don’t intend to say that this one scripture stands alone from the other around it but because of its straight forward nature it caught my attention. Most notably the first part, “Give to anyone who begs from you,”. Wow, did Jesus really just say that? Yep, I even put it in red letters so you would know it too.

Now I don’t know what Jesus said, I know that no one was there walking behind him writing down everything that he was saying. I know that it was a good length of time after Jesus’ death and resurrection when the stories of Jesus were written down. During that time it was passed from one person to another through word of mouth, through the stories of the life of this man name Jesus. So like I said I don’t know exactly what Jesus said, but what I do know is that this was something that was apparently important enough to survive the years of word of mouth to be written down. Any why wouldn’t it. This statement very much mirrors the way the early church operated. We read that the disciples sold all they owned and gave it to those in need. But it begs me to ask the question, really Jesus? Anyone?

Of course I ask this assuming that there could be a more straight forward way of saying it, but there simply isn’t. That is about as straight forward as it gets. Now, I have heard this sermon preached before, and I have heard groups of people talking afterwards saying things like “apparently we are expected to give away everything we have” (make sure to read that in a very sarcastic almost mocking tone, it will help with the effect) I sat in silence as conversations like these happened around me, thinking what if that was what he was saying? what if thats really the way we should leave? what would that mean to me and how I live my life?

Well for one it would mean that the next time I make a trip to the Russian Market near my house where women and children beg, that I would give to them. It would mean that when someone asks me for help, I help. I would mean that I not judge people and think to myself, well should I give to this person? what will they do with this money? I don’t know all this seems like a tall order but you know I feel like if I could pull off a lifestyle that follows these guidelines that my life would be blessed because of it.

So why not give it a shot. I am going to give this a real go. When someone begs from me, I am going to give. It may not always be in the form of money, maybe it comes in the form of a meal, or something useful, but it starts now. No more looking away hoping not to meet the eye line of a person who is asking for something. No more trying to deny they exist, from now on I look them in the eye, and I see them for who they really are, someone in need of something that I have to offer. If I can help I will, no questions asked. I fully expect fail at times, but when that happens I pray that I am reminded of this scripture.

We all have so much to give, and there is so much need in the world, God comes in the places where needs and gifts meet, God is found in the kindness of strangers, and in a giving heart. May we all do better to give not just out of connivence or to make us feel better, but to spread the blessings we have been given. And may our lives be blessed through giving freely of that which we have been given.

Sitting on my coffee table is a stack of papers that are about half graded. Once I finish, I will be one step closer to closing the door on my time here. Monday I gave my final exam to my students at the bible school and once I turn those grades in I have only a handful of things left to do here in Cambodia and most of them on the personal level.

And so the perfectly honestly I’m not in a rush. I will finish marking them today or tomorrow, but grading them really makes me think about whats next. I am trying not to focus on the future too much because I really do want to live for today, but I believe a little thought an preparation is not a bad thing. Plus when everyone always asks “Are you ready to go home?” it kind of makes it hard not to think about as well.

The answer is usually the same. I talk about my mixed emotions and then move on to the fact that it feels like it’s time. It seems almost weird to say but it feels like it, it feels like “ok you have done what you came here to do, experience what you came here to experience, no its time to move on.” Could I stay, well if it were a choice it would probably be a hard one, but its not, cause it isn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t sign up to come here for 3 years like a standard support missionary.

It’s actually a very complete feeling, and I hope it remains that way. I can only hope that someday in the distant future when its time for me say good bye to this life that I can have the same feeling of completion and I can say, as Carretto writes “Come Lord!” But that is for another time for now my moto is “Bring it on”.

I am reminded of a scene from one of the best TV shows ever The West Wing. The President has just disclosed to some people that he has an illness and didn’t tell anyone. He is talking to his Lawyer about what happens next and he tell the President this:

Oliver Babbish: “The new slogan around here is gonna be “Bring it on!” He’s gonna have access to every piece of paper you ever touched. If you invoke executive privilege one time, I’m gone. An assistant D.A in Ducksworth wants to take your deposition, you’re on the next plane. A freshman Congressman wants your testimony, you’ll sit in his kitchen. They wanna drag you to The Hague and charge you with war crimes, what’ll we say?”
President Bartlet: “Bring it on”

So this will be my slogan as well, Bring it on. I know that there are still wonderful things ahead of me and I will charge forward into the unknown, with the strength to face whatever happens. I will go forth knowing that the strength I have resides in my faith in a God who charges forward with me. Will I be sad? Yes, you would have to be heartless not to be. There are things I will miss and people who I treasure, but they are not dying, they will be charging forward to and though our paths diverge we will be connect forever by our experiences together.

For now I live each day for what it brings, I prepare myself for the future by telling myself bring it on! My goal? Making the most of the time and life that I have been blessed with, who can really do any more. I pray for all the other Mission Interns out there who are dealing with some of the same emotions that I have been dealing with. I pray that they see that the time we have here has been a blessing but just because it is ending doesn’t mean that the blessing ceases. We will forever be blessed by our time in our placements and the people who have become a part of our lives and our story. May we all find enough peace with in us to unreservedly move forward when the time comes, saying all the while bring it on.

In my last blog post “Today we love” I talked about the evolution of my faith and focus. When I read these words above I wondered if this didn’t have something to do with that evolution. As I said in the previous blog post I remember pondering a lot about Heaven and what happens when you die and who gets into heaven etc. But over time it seemed that I came to care less and less about those things and more about the hear and now. Then today I read these words and though they are found in a completely separate part of the book they seem to resonate with the same idea.

I remember when I was younger hearing people speak of the “Living God” and to me that idea always escaped me. What could people possibly mean by this? To me growing up God was found solely in Scripture. Its almost as if God was hold up in the pages of the bible, doomed to be simply repeated over and over again through the readings of the same stories. I had a sense there was more but what that more was I had little idea of.

Then I went off to college, and under the wonder Rev. Sara Barberee I started to explore this idea of a living God. Along with this exploration came the opening of my eyes to a world larger than I had ever stopped to think about. My life up to that point had been Texas, and more precisely it had been East Texas. But as the world grew things started to change and I started seeing things differently.

I can not say for sure what “the hour” came for me, maybe it just happened gradually but I began that transition from a God locked away in the parables of the Bible, an active God, a personal God, a God of faith. Then I began to understand the idea of a “Living God”. God was no longer a God that was only active in those who believe, but was a God who is active everywhere at all times, and this God of faith beckons me to join in that activity.

We live in a broken and cruel world. But this is not a death sentence, no Christ shows us that there is something more. This is a call to action, to sacrifice, to caring and to love. Some thing amazing happens when God steps from the pages of scripture and into the world, hope is found, hope for something more. This something more isn’t found through death, but rather it is found through life. We only have to follow the lead of God to find this life, to follow God into the world, a bruised and battered world, to bring about hope. A hope that is found in a God of faith, and a God who is love. After all, “these three remain, faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.”