Letting Myself Get Excited

I drove home from meeting my girlfriends at Starbucks. It was twilight, clear, beautiful, the lights of everything twinkling against the dusky sky. The road was open and I turned up the radio and danced in my seat, feeling joy seep from my very pores.

Halfway down 380 a song I also know in Indonesian came on and as I started to sing along it all just hit me. Indonesian. This song. I will sing it again IN Indonesia. It’s not just my past, it’s my future.

I got all teary and burst out aloud, “I’m going home!”

It’s the first time it’s hit like that. I’ve been careful not to get too attached to the idea of moving to Papua because things change and it’s going to be very different and much harder to live there as an adult. I don’t want to romanticize it, so I haven’t.

Some of you who know my love for growing up in Indonesia might not believe me when I say that I really didn’t think Isaac and I would ever live in Indonesia. Isaac always indicated he wanted to work in Europe. Until a year ago I didn’t even know theological education was a felt need right now in Papua. We didn’t seek out opportunities in Indonesia. What we actually did was to look for organizations that had opportunities for theological education overseas. We talked to multiple organizations that work in Europe and came up dry with most. We looked at a place in Africa, one in Mexico, a spot in Pakistan, another in Ireland.

One organization we’ve both been familiar with for ages listed theological education opportunities on their website. Our initial conversations with them were positive, so we wanted to see if any of those opportunities were real things that would fit Isaac’s skills and experience. We filled out a profile and had the organization send it to all those opportunities around the world to see if anyone would respond and say they needed us.

The next day we got an email from Papua saying that they partnered with a local Seminary and that the seminary needed a teacher. We started emailing the Indonesian head of the school and got more details and it was an amazing fit.  I held off to see what Isaac would think and was surprised that he was very excited and more excited as time went by.  Every time I pull back and clarify that that this is really a good fit and it’s really something he wants to do, he’s surer than I am.

A month later with prodding from people in the US office, none of the other international opportunities ever responded to us. One door wide open in a place where I already have a head start on the language and culture, and every other door pretty much closed.

And so….. we’re walking through it.

It’s only now that we’re actually raising support and selling our furniture in expectation of leaving within a year that I’ve really begun to think…. This actually looks like its happening.

I’m getting excited.