One Year Later
It feels weird even typing that title. It’s been a year since hugs and at least a few tears in a Dallas airport when I left to live overseas for two years. Even today it hit me. I was sitting on the floor with a few friends, and even though some of us were American, no one was speaking English. We were digging into a goopy foreign substance with our bare hands, drinking tea, and talking about life. The strangest thing was that it felt so normal. That’s my life now, one year later. And as I reflect on how it’s come to be this way, it’s incredibly difficult to adequately sum it… Read more >>
On the Brink
Honestly, I’ve probably written at least three blog posts for this/last month but didn’t post any of them. Let’s chalk it up to busyness laziness. After last night, I think I finally know what I should get out there this month: I’m on the brink. Not in a crazy, needing medication kind of way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. A lot of the hopes and dreams I had in coming into this environment seem just on the edge of becoming realities. They don’t seem intangible and far off anymore. They seem close and real. Since the summer I’ve focused on abiding in the Lord. Meaning,… Read more >>
Home Sweet Help!
I remember studying in a Linguistic Pragmatics class that human conversation can be likened to a play. Meaning, we take up various roles in the conversation and fulfill them in the ways we talk. There’s the boss and employee; the buyer and seller; the student and mentor; and the helpless foreigner and faithful guide. Human conversation and experience can definitely be likened to a play sometimes, and this play was all too interesting to watch unfold as me and a fellow worker friend navigated finding a new apartment in a city of twenty-million people over the last couple days. To… Read more >>
Time to Work
“Skateboard shoes, skateboard shoes, skateboard shoes…” I don’t why this childhood memory, of all things, sticks out to me so consistently now as an adult. I was probably 10 or 11 years old, wanted a new pair of skateboard shoes, so my Dad put me (and my siblings) to work to lay a new spread of grass in our yard. The payoff for my labor would be skateboard shoes. With every drag of the rake breaking up dirt to plant the grass he told me to just repeat it in my head to remind me why I was working, “Skateboard shoes, skateboard shoes, skateboard shoes.” I’m really thankful for… Read more >>