Geography is irrelevant

My screensaver on my laptop is ‘As you are going’. As it bounces around on my screen everyday, I am reminded of the commission given broadly to believers by Jesus just before His ascent to heaven. I remember understanding while preparing to speak to a group of high school students last year the vast command and the specific implications in my life. Every time someone in Ukraine introduces me as a missionary from Michigan I smile. Even though I have always tried to live out my faith deliberately with those that God places in my path, living oversees for a semester has definitely brought a new perspective to making disciples as I am going or as I am living my life. This is perhaps the starkest revelation to me in Ukraine is simply that I am living life. Different location, similar daily struggles, similar day to day annoyances, and similar joys and triumphs. In Retreat with the Psalms, the authors speak of a woman who spends time in a monastery. She reflects that you can’t dress perfectly either outwardly or inwardly when you go to church numerous times everyday. It is the realness of life with a God who knows all of my strengths, weaknesses, challenges and triumphs before they even happen. It is about the sincerity of my heart before a Holy God as I struggle to live out His Kingdom while learning a different culture. It is about learning some new aspects of how I am created as I live outside of my comfort zone and appreciate some of our cultural differences.

For those of you who are counting the days... I am flying home on Tuesday, January 16. I beleive my flight lands in Grand Rapids at 4:18 pm.