Returning...

I'm returning pretty soon to the land that challenges me, frightens me, woos me and sneezes dust into my hair. I'm being asked a lot of questions about it though, from friends on both sides of the pond. 

"What are you going to do there?" 

"How long will you stay this time?"

"Did you find a job?"

"You should have a plan."

"How does your Mom feel about this?"

"We miss you too much, but why are you coming?" 

The answers to these things are murky at best. Friends on this side understand somewhat better than friends on the other. There isn't a whole lot of process of self-discovery and journey for purpose over there. All of this choice we have to decide - who it is we're becoming and how it is that we're becoming and whether or not God is in charge of that process or we've taken it upon ourselves - is missing from their vocabulary.  

What I know for sure is that Egypt is part of my future - the immediate part of it anyway. It's in my gut, has been since last April when I was standing 60 to 70 concrete stairs up in an auditorium carved into the side of a mountain. But the path isn't always clear. There's a great quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. that I feel I need to adopt as my mantra: "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." The last decade or so of my life has looked like this. And God never shows me the whole staircase. 

So I'll go and I'll serve and I'll wait and I'll become. I'll join alongside other brilliant dreams as I wait for my own. I'll gain fluency and understanding and experience in navigating the undercurrents of being human in different circumstances. Perhaps I'll be a part of someone else's dream coming true. It's a step. And even in the not knowing, it's a step upwards.