the future

Okay, so here's what I've been thinking lately. Anything I say here is still up in the air, because God might change me/my mind, and I've got one more year anyway.

I don't know that I'll stay in Massachusetts after I graduate. Real estate is high--that's one reason. But I think after 4 years, I'll have had my fill of the state. If I leave, I will definitely miss the people that have made this "home". My SACK family, my quizzing family (those that excitedly greet me after a summer apart, those that have helped me step up into leadership roles, those that have just laughed with-or at-me, those that have taught me by example, those that have made me step out of my comfort zone), my ENC family (professors that have helped me when I had questions, friends that I could talk to, my CAS workplace, various other members in the ENC community), and those that I have babysat for.

I don't know that I'll go back to Maryland. The Eastern Shore can be uninteresting at times. Plus I don't want to be there for the rest of my life. Yes, I have my family there, and I love them to death. Especially my brother, but come 2009, he'll be gone too. I would like to step into some leadership roles at my church, but I feel like I'm still the overgrown kid sometimes. I've thought about leading the youth group, or helping coordinate a missions trip (they have not done one since I was 16), but that is a lot.

Lately I've been thinking about moving to El Paso and teaching in the school district there. Yeah, it's really far away, but it became my home this summer. I could see my "family" there (Marco's family, Esme's family, the various missionaries, my friends in Mexico like Gedeon, Fabiola, etc) and I could probably be an encouragement to them. Plus, I would LOVE the weather there, and the fact that Spanish is so prevalent.

I was kind of offered a job to teach for a year or two in an international school in Bulgaria, but I would like to be in the States while I iron out the "new teacher" wrinkles for at least a year. I think it would be pretty cool to teach overseas, and travel.

Whether that means being a missionary, I don't know. I think it would be cool to be a missionary, to have adventures (though, after this summer, I know that it is not thrilling all the time. tedious at times) If that's what God has for me, excellent! If not, excellent too. Wherever God wants me, wherever God can use me, I'm alright with. I am in general excited about missions. Next weekend I am chaperoning for a kids' missions jamboree in Weymouth. I love meeting missionaries, and even staying in contact with a number of them.

This is what I wrote on the "Wall of Hope" at YIM training camp, for what my dreams are.
"to be all that God has for me. to do all that God has for me. obedience. trusting and not relying on 'my' strengths. to follow God. love others. LOVE GOD. to put God first in everything and not get distracted. to see where You are working and recognize it. to do whatever God has for me."