En Route

Today I finally begin traveling to Kenya, a two-day trip including 24 hours in London. Travel has gone incredibly well so far, I don’t know when I’ve had easier or better connections and flights - I currently have two empty seats to my left for the nine hour flight to London. Yeah, Jesus loves me.

The last couple weeks passed quickly and included two days of orientation with International Justice Mission. Because I attended the full week of training last January before my DC internship, I only needed the sessions with material unique to a field position e.g., cultural adjustment, security, job specific training. I appreciated seeing old friends and meeting new colleagues but more than anything orientation week reminded me of how thankful I am to participate in IJM’s work.  The commitment and excellence of IJM’s staff is humbling and inspiring, and I left DC more excited than ever about the mission and confident that I made the right choice.

I did not decide quickly and easily to apply for and accept this field office position. A lot of self-imposed expectations and desires played a part, and fears that I did not even know I had surfaced.  I never considered myself a fearful person, or even controlled by expectation, but as I tried to trace my feelings of anxiety back to the thoughts generating them I realized two things about myself:

          - I care a lot about what people think of me

I worried that people would think of me as irresponsible, overly-idealistic or just plain silly. I mean, I’m a blonde, American millennial asking for money to move to Africa with a Christian, human rights organization – can you get *any* more cliché than that? Just let me go Instagram selfies holding adorable orphans…  I cannot even take myself seriously sometimes. I feel a lot of pressure to explain, to myself and others, why I’m*not* that person, why this opportunity is “good for my career,” and how the work of IJM is sustainable and effective.  Certainly, I can do that, and the explanations are honest; but by doing that I feel like I sacrifice the heart of why I’m here and conform my passion for justice and the work into something that has to make sense and appease my own fear of man. By taking this defensive position I distract from my opportunity to share God’s transformative and relentless love that truly inspires me.

         - I have a timeline in my head of what my life should look like

So there exists a mythical thing called a paycheck that people receive after going to work every day. Paychecks symbolize success and the reason why I spent four years in college. Cutting some slack for the free-spirited or indecisive types, at about 22-24 years old intelligent, mature people should actually have a steady job, a car, insurance and some clearly articulable goals. That’s what being an adult is, isn’t it? In my mind I anticipated having at this point a job, an apartment, a community… actually dating someone for more than 3 months… all the things that signify maturity.

By choosing to accept another unpaid internship, this time for a year overseas, I feared I was abandoning that and, therefore, making a bad life choice. I realize how foolish that sounds (hello, and calm down, you’re only 23… I know, I know), especially to anyone else who has taken a similar step as an IJM field internship, but it’s still where I was at. I had to take that timeline and picture of life I’d subconsciously nurtured out and inspect it to really determine my motives. Is it something correctly inspired by God or rather an illusion of security I’ve made up myself? Sacrificing that timeline was hard and it’s a continuing struggle.

I struggled with more questions but I wanted to share those thoughts particularly. I am thankful for how the decision making process revealed these fears. God had asked for more of my trust and vulnerability than required before and that’s a good thing.

Notes to Self: Time spent pursuing Jesus is never wasted. I’ll never miss out while following the greatest joy and greatest joy-giver.