Departure, detachment, and destiny

I leave for the next leg of my travels on Monday.  Last month I spent almost three weeks in the Washington DC/Alexandria, VA area.  Week one was a good ammount of time in coffee shops and out on the waterfront of Old Town Alexandria – I call that week vacation.  Week two was the tourist week, as my friend Stephanie came into town and had arranged several tours through our Representatives office (Capitol Building, White House, State Department).  The third week was focused on a two day event called “How it Ends” which was Lobby Days for Northern Uganda.  That was work and spiritual warfare.  Politics are every bit as shady as people make them out to be, and the slightly informed yet extremely passionate mob is every bit as frightening as one would imagine.  Spattered across the three weeks were a handful of meetings with friends and acquaintances whom I connected with as I’ve pursued possible increased involvement in northern Uganda.

Only last Wednesday I was on my way out the door of my friend’s appartment and it seems like an age ago.  The excitement and anxiety of prepairing for Uganda has forced me to put the reality that I may never meet those friends face to face again on the back burner.  It’s a strange thing to realize that I’m intentionally not dealing with that and instead choosing to let my mind believe that in a few months or a year I’ll go back or they’ll come over here.  I’m just hoping this doesn’t compile ontop of the re-entry I’m going to go through when I get back from Africa.

I think it’s strange that everyone seems to think this summer is somehow for me about finding destiny or some such thing.  It’s not.  I have my calling on life – I’m just doing my best to move with the Spirit as that calling works its self out.  My desire is to see Jesus’ prayer in for the church to be one in John 17 to be answered.  That means here and there, it means encouraging the church where it exists, establishing it where it is absent, and giving it voice where it is voiceless.  In a way, this summers travels are not in search of anything in particular but living out what I feel called to.  I’m not searching in the sense of that I feel unfulfilled, or that there is something mysterious absent from my life that I’m hoping to find.  I’m practicing and testing out what I already know that I am called to.  Just on a bit grander scale than in the past.

The next blog will be from Uganda – probably on Wednesday or Thursday.  After that – God only knows.  Thank you for reading and please keep me in your prayers.