Reflections on Santa Barbara

During my four months in Santa Barbara, God taught me a lot. I'm sure that I don't know the full extent of everything He was trying to teach me, and even what I know would take a while to write here. Instead I'm going to share two of the primary themes I saw throughout my time in Santa Barbara.

The themes are thankfulness, and joy. Obviously these themes are not unrelated. Since I first received the job offer at Toyon in September, I have seen the ways that God has put pieces into place for me. My Church, my home group, being able to live with Ian. All of it was such a blessing. Here's the crazy part. I don't think God has been doing more for me than He was before, I just think God has helped open my eyes to more of the blessings in my life. I am thankful for all of it!

The theme of thankfulness was one I had picked up after just a couple of months. It wasn't until the very end of my time in Santa Barbara that I realized God had also been teaching me about joy. This realization came during my last home group meeting when we studied 1 Peter 1:6-12. There's a lot in that passage, but we spent the majority of our time talking about joy. I realized that while in Santa Barbara, God has given me four of the most joyful months of my life. More than that, it wasn't my situations that made me joyful, because then my joy would have disappeared during the difficult times. Rather, God allowed me to experience joy throughout, even when I was struggling.

There are many examples I could give to demonstrate these things, but I will use an example from my final day at work. My last few hours at work were spent showing my boss (not project manager) a demonstration of what I had been working on almost exclusively for the last 2 months I was at Toyon. Here's the short (probably over-simplified) version of what I had been doing: I was interfacing a routing algorithm written by someone outside of Toyon with our program so it could tell planes where to go. The result of my efforts was something my boss deemed unusable. Granted, it probably wasn't my fault, since I largely just interfaced the algorithm. Still, it was depressing to find out that my work wouldn't be used. In the midst of this, I remembered home group from the night before, and found the answer I needed: God reminded me to be joyful. At the very end of the day, just a few minutes before I left, I saw someone I wasn't expecting to see. Mark, another one of my project managers appeared outside my door to wish me off. He had been at the Harvey Mudd career fair that afternoon, but had left a bit early and rushed back so that he could see me off. I was really touched that he had come back just to see me off on my last day. Once again God brought me back to a humble thankfulness. I left Toyon that evening knowing not only that God loves me, but also that I was at a company with people who cared about me.

Travels

I finished my internship at Toyon last Friday. I'm currently traveling through LA visiting college friends. I'll be driving back up to Portland on Friday and Saturday. Then I have a week and a half to spend time with family and friends up in the North-West. On February 16th I'll be on a plane out of the country.

Encouragement

I received a handful of very encouraging emails recently. Several of them were from co-workers who were excited to hear about what I'll be doing in India. On Tuesday I had sent out an email letting everyone at Toyon know what I am going to do, and asking if anyone wanted to receive email updates. Out of about 75 people in the company, 24 wanted to receive the updates. Several let me know that they would be praying for me. What a blessing!

Todd

I received a comforting phone call last night. It was from Todd, the other male on my Kolkata team. We talked for about an hour, and it was really good getting to know him a bit. For me, one of the scariest aspects about this trip is that I'm going into it essentially not knowing anyone. Sure I've had a little contact, but not much. Just that single phone conversation has helped me feel a bit more connected with my soon to be team.

Let me also tell a story from LAUP that will illustrate a bit more why this scares me. About an hour before Greg picked me up for LAUP, I was sitting alone at Nate Leung's place, where I had spent the night before (Everyone who lived there was at Church). I started feeling very anxious about LAUP, wondered what I had gotten myself into, and wondered how I was going to handle it. I prayed and journaled, which helped some, but I was still anxious and even a bit scared. It was very comforting when Greg arrived. Suddenly it was a reality that one of my closest friends was going to be with me through the experience.

My Last Sunday at Church in Santa Barbara

I wanted to write about this closer to the fact, but I just never got around to it. I suppose it's better late than never. (And really, three days isn't all that late is it?)

Last Sunday, (January 23rd) was my last Sunday in Santa Barbara. One of the pastors had me come up and tell the congregation both a little bit about how I got involved in the Church, and also about my upcoming trip to Kolkata. After that they prayed for me. There were many things that struck me, but I'll mention one in particular. I wasn't the only one they were sending out. Two missionaries (a husband and wife) supported by our Church were there too. They have spent the last 28 years of their lives investing in the Pume Indians in Venezuela. When they first went there, they had to start by learning the language from scratch. It was really amazing and encouraging to be standing side by side with the two of them as the Church was sending all of us off in prayer.

After the second service, I went out to dinner with a bunch of people. It was really great just enjoying a meal with some of the people I won't get to see again for five months. Even after dinner was over and we were all leaving, a handful of us stood in the parking lot talking for another half-hour or so.

This story wouldn't be complete without bringing Sierra and Diego into it. Sierra has something at school that she's supposed to bring her dad (or an alternative) to. Unfortunately it's on a night when he can't make it. Apparently Sierra thought of me as a replacement, and got really excited about the idea. Even though I'm not going to go either, I was really touched to know that she wanted me to go with her. Later, while I was at dinner, Heidi called me up. While their family was praying before dinner, Diego audibly* thanked God for me! I think that was one of the best phone calls I've ever gotten. Those two kids have blessed me so much.

* Usually when Diego prays, he prays so quietly that you can't hear what he's saying. He will still get upset if you cut him off though.

Your Landlord Probably isn't this Bad

This story is one of the funniest things I've read recently. Ian found it on a message board he reads. If you have problems with your landlord, they will seem like an angel after reading this story.

The Cry

Word Made Flesh puts out a quarterly publication called "The Cry." You can download pdfs of it here. I've only read part of what's in there, but I can already tell that there's some pretty deep stuff in there. If you've got the time, I highly recommend checking it out.

Page 17 of the most recent issue (Winter 2004) has a poem by Kristin Keen, the woman that will be leading my team in Kolkata. The poem is a response to her work with sexually exploited women.

IJM

Tuesday night I went to a meeting about IJM (International Justice Mission), run by people from Church. It consisted of hearing updates on IJM's work in Latin America and then praying for them and for their specific needs. It was a really great joining in community to pray about issues of world justice and pray for those that are working toward those ends. My understanding is that the sub-groups of IJM we were praying for were the ones specifically supported by our Church.

I also learned that Gary Haugen, founder and president of IJM, will be the guest speaker for our Church retreat in April. I am a bit disappointed to know that I won't be able to go. Fortunately that is offset by my excitement in knowing that my Church is focusing a Church retreat on issues of justice in the world.

Guilt

The past few weeks people at work have started asking how much longer before I leave. There are two answers to that question. My last day at Toyon is the 28th of January. I leave the country on the 16th of February. Whenever I tell people that, I feel like I need to justify those two and a half weeks in between. It seems silly, but for some reason I feel guilty for taking that time off. It isn't like I'm getting paid for that time or anything, I'm just taking time off because I value that extra time more than the money.

One Month

One month from today, on February 16th, I will be on a plane out of the country (I won't actually arrive in Kolkata until February 18th though). It seems so soon and I really don't know how to feel. The whole thing both excites and scares me.

I was reading this page on the Word Made Flesh website a few days ago. It is a memorial to some of the children who have died in the Word Made Flesh children's homes. Their stories of are well worth the read. Oh, and although these homes are located in Chennai, not Kolkata, our team will probably have the opportunity to visit these homes while in India. My heart weeps at the injustice many children live in, but rejoices that God has placed His workers there to bring mercy and justice for some of these kids.