Episode #14 -- It's been a week...

since I returned home from Africa... and this week has been a blur!

I started the week by spending my first day back at work on Tuesday driving to Indianapolis for an I-69 meeting... not quite what you'd call "easing back into it"... on the road before 8 a.m. and back home well after dark!

On Wednesday, I spent the day attempting to ease back in... but everyone wanted a piece of my time to bring me up to speed on what happened on I-69 while I was gone...

We also had our monthly Thought Provoking Book Club meeting on Wednesday during lunch, where we were discussing Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis -- Repainting the Christian Faith... a rather interesting book -- Bell comes at faith in God from a very different perspective than most Christians...

In one part of the book, though, Bell talks about missions, missionaries and a different perspective -- so the question was posed to me during the meeting about what my perspective was when I left for Africa and whether I felt like I was "taking" the Gospel to East Africa. What a great opportunity to share my experience!

I told the group that, based on advice from several different people, I attempted to leave for Africa with few expectations as to what I would experience -- which is totally out of character for "this engineer" -- but, I desired to be open to what the Lord wanted me to show me and what He wanted me to do about it... In Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell suggests there is a different approach for missions work where "the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst." I said to the group that was exactly what I experienced on this trip -- as Bell describes it, the "depth and texture and connection" of our creative and awesome Lord amongst the people of East Africa! I saw God at work in the lives and the hearts of the people that I met there!

Another person then asked what I would take away from the trip spiritually, and I explained to them that I have a hard time just "going with the flow" -- I like to have things planned out and know exactly what I'm striving to accomplish -- you know, goals and objectives for everything... on this trip, though, our schedule was "sketchy" and not highly structured, therefore, I had to learn to simply rely on God and place my trust in Him that He would direct my thoughts, my words, my steps, my actions... everything! Essentially, what I took away was what means to live in His presence moment-to-moment, hour-to-hour, day-to-day... Everything that I did and experienced was totally new and, most of the time, overwhelming! But, God made himself readily apparent throughout all of the trip!

The rest of the week I spent working very, very hard to complete a supplemental agreement for our I-69 project, and coordinating with everyone that needed to provide input on it...

And with that, I'm back to the question I posed last week... So, now what?

I pray that the Lord will reveal to me the direction or directions that He would have me go in the aftermath of this adventure... wherever, He may lead me!