A Call...

I am amazed at how life can shake you out of your comfortable plans in a phone call. How God can call your bluff and "double dare ya" to pick up and live the dream you've been advertising for years. I am amazed at how much I cling to the bodily comforts of this world and struggle with letting them go.

The last week has been a tornado, a bomb shell and our worlds are sort of rocked. Life has been very emotional, full of discussion, journaling and surveying our goals and that which drives our passion for life.

So exactly one week ago today, an unexpected opportunity fell into Patrick's and my lap. While searching for a location to do some traveling and volunteering this summer, Patrick stumbled across an opportunity through his church (the UCC) for a paid missionary placement in Haiti. The job calls for a teacher/Master of Divinity and a medical professional. It asks for a 4 year commitment, living and working in the main city of Port-Au-Prince while also doing outreach to some rural locations. Patrick would teach in a seminary there, work on community improvement projects and do some new project planning. My job, currently, is still vague... but includes working in an inner-city clinic and a rural mobile clinic, potentially working in a hospital, teaching community health and lecturing to the nursing school there. BIG details still hang in the balance. We sit in limbo waiting for conversations with people who hold the details, waiting for a visit to Haiti to get a feel for what we would be committing to.

Of course my mind has been flooded with a million worries and excitement and terrors. Is it safe? Can we afford it? Can I live in a place without electricity or running water for 4 years? Will I be prepared for the medicine I'll practice there? Will I be able to learn Haitian Creole in time? Can I leave my pets? Can I take them--fat, happy dogs-- in the face of starving children in Haiti? Are we jeopardizing our health? Can we live as simply as life there will demand? Can I be away from my frail grandma, my growing nephew, my family and friends for that long? Will anyone come visit? Will my family understand? Will I be employable when I return? Will I loose the skills of an American doctor after leaving a world of consumption for a world were there is not enough to consume? Will I forgive myself if I don't take this opportunity? How will this change the course of our lives? And the list goes on...

Long story short, Patrick and I can't hide the spooky feeling that some bigger power is stirring the swivel stick of life. Living, working, and immersing ourselves into another culture is something we both have always dreamed of before ever meeting each other. We never thought it would be possible to go abroad so soon given our enormous debt. Now an opportunity arises--a unique opportunity that would allow us to afford to live and work and pay our bills. The timing seems right: no children, no mortgage, no jobs to leave. If we waited, the decision would become more complex given the "settling in" and baby-making we would do. Or in retirement our bodies would likely take a larger toll in sacrificing comforts and health. And as scary as it seems, it also feels like we can't NOT do it...

The culture sounds amazing, the poverty extreme, the need great. As one doctor told me, I can do more good in minutes there than years here. It is a place where I am told some have to use dirt as a filler to make bread because they are too poor to buy flour, a place where some families are forced to choose the most vulnerable of their children to leave in a corner and neglect until he dies because food doesnt' exist to feed all mouths in the family. And I hear stories of the strength, courage and pride of the people, the richness and complexity of the culture, and I'm compelled to learn about their lives.

"We'd have 3 weeks of vacation to come home and see family and friends, as much time off as I have now. With the miracle of phones and Internet and cheap flights from Haiti, I think I'll see everyone almost as much as I do already." This is how I go and work through each of my worries: rationalizing, making financial spread sheets, talking to friends and strangers about their experiences in Haiti, talking to future employers about my hireability after such a proposed adventure. I journal until some of the fear dissipates and calm settles in.

There are still some really big questions to answer and long conversations to have. As amazing as the opportunity seems, I'm terrified to give up a job I am well-trained to do, a home in the mountains, good smells, independence, running water, fuzzy dogs, health care and all that we for granted here in the U.S. of A.

I am amazed how much even the simple suggestion of such an opportunity has changed the way I take survey of my days lately. I go for a run with Sadie and am thankful for being able to safely run alone through the city. I take a shower and am grateful for the warmth and the water pressure and the feeling of being clean. I snuggle down in my bed and am grateful that I don't have to shake it out for fear of bugs hidden within. I go for walks with Duke and Sadie and little Shanti-kitty darting behind me and am thankful for my little funny family. I turn on the tap and drink water grateful for the knowledge that it brings health to my body and not disease... and the moments go on. But as much as we'd be giving up for a short period of time in the span of a life, the call to interact and live among the poorest of the poor, to learn about a culture from the inside out, to help alleviate suffering in lives who need basic medical care, to embrace the opportunity to live out our wildest and most passionate dreams is loud and clear and rustles our souls.

We have some really good opportunities here in Denver as well... so as Patrick says, all of our options are good. And with time, our path will become clear. We find ourselves in a blessed situation. But we struggle with the responsibility of choice before us.

Who knows what will turn out of all of this, but it is a beautiful gift to be challenged in a matter of days, to have our eyes wiped clean, and to have the world open up to us in some ways. Regardless of the outcome, we are challenged and forced to think. To think about how we spend our time, our money. How we are gifted with blessings that we take as a given. We are reminded of lives that struggle as we lounge. We are rocked awake after falling into the comfort of routine, the luxury of convenience. We value that which we have taken for granted for fear that the future does not hold all that we keep close. We wonder if the call of mission will take us to places we never dreamed or keep us in our current state of being. Only time and thought and contemplation will tell...