Ash

Yah for leaving! Yah for leaving what we know, what we hold dear, what gives us the feeling of safety! Yesterday I spectated my mom and a friend of hers having a conversation right in front of me about how dangerous and crazy it is to leave the country these days. On the surface I tried to ignore the conversation, but in my inside a little part of me was ha-ha'ing. I've been thinking about relationships again lately (I think it's just the age at which we find ourselves that brings up these thoughts) and I realized again today how much more excited I am right now for what God has in store for me than to just find a husband, get married, and live that life. I was telling my mom stories from Africa today and how I hope that someday me and Amber can go live in a hut in the middle of the jungle. She gets nervous about that stuff and brings up things like the heat, or the getting eaten by killer-death-fire-ants, or the food, but in the very core of me I'd take on all those things again. I love the challenge of that life-style; the in-your-face, front-lines ministry, needing-Jesus-or-I-die, kind of life. I think that's why I love, and feel called, to the at-risk young people, the homeless, the inner-city addicts and the unfulfilled, urban Aboriginal people. Those are the people that you have to be real with, you have to live to a certain standard, and you have to have a faith and a love that is practical and overflowing with hope. I love the challenge that I receive in my own life from people like that. I could love and live with those people for the rest of my life.

That's why I love leaving. You never know what you might find and who you might meet. I can't imagine what my life would have been like without Tobago or Africa (I wouldn't have Amber in my life...). That's what I'm thankful for today--that Jesus called me to more life than I could have expected, and that I don't even have a grasp yet to all the hope, all the joy, all the amazingness that I will yet behold. Yah!