This journal is new. The gold along the sides of the paper is still glimmering in my desk lamp. The leather smells like a new car and the pages hold endless possibilities for adventure. ‘First Page Syndrome’, you avid journal-ers know what I am referencing… you know- where you will wait for your life’s circumstances to perfectly cater to that perfect first journal entry. Even though there is plenty that you can write about, it is not first page worthy. This, is a parallel to that.
I am about 8 weeks from the biggest departure of my life. Yes, my passport is being stamped for a 4th time… destination: Incheon, South Korea, or SOKO as referenced by T.A.L.K.A. After adventuring through the over-populated, underground malls of China last summer and meeting some of the kindest people… I am on to the next big one… And boy, am I ever ready to fly. I will be teaching conversational English in a private elementary school there for a contracted 12 months, with potential of a longer stay, and who knows what comes after that. I have a desire to work with an orphanage in Thailand, something I have been researching now for three years. After saving some much-needed funds in SoKo, I may end up somewhere else in Asia.
Am I scared? Sometimes out of my mind, sometimes… I laugh in the face of danger. I look for it at times. It is those moments where my ignorance wears off that I worry about. Hopefully I can stay blissful for the next few weeks. It will be a relief to put in my two weeks notice. As of now, I have to live this secret life.
I am so ready to go God-seeking. I am ready to be in a place where I am uncomfortable and lonely. In a strange way, it is comforting… the Lord has a unique way of drawing closest to me in these moments. I hear his voice clearest in the shadows and valleys.
Right now, I am on top of a mountain. I have a successful career path paved out for me if I were to choose it. I have a great relationship which I could completely and utterly find complete comfort in … if I chose to, and I have a beautiful house, car… name it… the Lord has let me taste it. Yet- satisfaction, the more I think on it… comes not in any of these things. It doesn’t even come within my friendships. There is something beyond this paradigm I am living in… I feel it brewing in my spirit. And although Korea may not answer all of life’s questions, I have no doubts that the Lord has confirmed, over and over, that this is the path destined for my life in 2009-2010.
Who knows, maybe I will be a professional wanderer.
