TRA[life]VELS

Just more than a week ago, I didn't wake up to church bells, my facebook didn't ask me for my "passwort", and asking for tap water didn't warrant a puzzled expression. Yes, I am back in the good 'ol USA. Our narrow escape from Eyajfjallajokull took place April 15th at noon, only we didn't know we were escaping anything. Once we arrived at our connecting flight in Philadelphia, we heard that they started canceling flights right after ours.

This entire experience has been sandwiched between two planes. Just another season of my life that has come and gone, and yet I never really felt that I had come or gone anywhere. I don't mean I felt my experience was lacking in traveling or seeing fantastic places, because that is one area it definitely wasn't lacking. The entire time I was in Germany, I wasn't homesick. Not once. Sure I missed certain things, like watching youtube videos with my friends while we should be studying, fellowshipping with my brothers and sisters at Grace and Truth Study, and Mexican food...but that's a different thing entirely. When I arrived at LAX 9pm Thursday night, I got in the car with my family, drove the 2 hours home, and walked right back into my bedroom. Nothing had changed, and I only noticed because I had.

It's impossible to sum up the last three months of my life. Even as I dwell on it at times I can't wrap my mind around it. Was it the trip itself or the fact that I had never done anything like this before? Would I have grown in similar ways if I hadn't gone overseas? I don't know the answers to my own questions. I can only speculate and my guess is as good as yours. But for what its worth, let me tell you what I do know. This semester was not on accident. As haphazard as it seemed at times, each specific circumstance was there on purpose. God knows what He's doing. So simple. Why do I forget the simple things easiest? The factors that went into getting me to AMBEX alone prove that point, but then when I think that God did that for 9 other students as well, it sort of blows my mind. And that's just one thing, there are countless factors playing into my experience that I don't even acknowledge that were all specifically put in place so I could come out of AMBEX different than when I went in.

God is good. Period.

Although my circumstances aren't ideal in my eyes right now, my goal is to reflect on the past three months of my life as an encouragement. The same God that sent me to Germany is also keeping me in the high desert for four months.