"Farewell and all Good-byes To the Shoreline..."

One week of SLI here at Lithuania Christian College is gone. I still miss Moscow, but I've met some 50+ students and a lot more have heard me sing or discuss or played cards with me and they're AWESOME! I'm tired. I'm overwhelmed by the number of students, and the short time that I'm here for, the needs and complexities of the lives of each person I run into. I know that I can't be everything to everyone...that I will probably only really touch a handful of lives. In the daily to-do lists, spiritual and student life programs, and the requests of various students or teachers, it's difficult to maintain focus and walk with God. I'm not used to having an office (I have two)--I'm not used to Lithuanian culture, among other things.

I've done a good job connecting to students. The programs are really cool, and I've had a few good conversations, got to pray for a couple students. Teachers keep telling me I'm popular. At lunch time we sang worship songs out front of the campus and heard testimony from a man from New Zealand who heard God call him to Lithuania in a corn field in Australia and a 2nd year student from Central Asia who became a Christian and now can't go home, not knowing whether or not she would be killed by her relatives. Some evenings we have tea and games: I have introduced Pit with Spoons, Signs, Rat Slap, and Chop Suey. Emma, a ten year old, was instrumental in popularizing rat slap all through the dorm. Other evenings we have journey groups: movie and chat, book discussion, bible study, and Crossroads, a discussion group. I'm one of the leaders for Crossroads, we've had lively discussions on Parents and Friends so far. The discussion on parents went for an hour and a half, and we also talked about orphans, money, and when it was a good idea to have children. Today I went with the local Vineyard church and some SLI students and played baseball at an orphanage on the other side of town. I plan to return there twice in this coming week.

It's been cool to see how my parents have connected to the community here. One girl from the local orphanage feels like family for sure, and spends a lot of time with my mom. At church last Sunday we had a baptism, singing familiar songs in an unfamiliar tongue. Seeing a large group of young people get baptized in the Baltic was really special, the church just forming on this full beach, hugging and singing. As I looked out over the horizon watching the baptisms, a Stavesacre song came to mind: "Follow with the tide, ease into the cooler water. Farewell and all good-byes to the shoreline." Even though this feels comfortable here, even though the routine is easy, I am reminded that faith and following Jesus is never easy. That Jesus took time aside to pray. That following God is going to take a lot more than going through the motions. And that horizon, that tension of not knowing what comes next, frightens and excites us as we go under and out into deeper waters...