So I've actually been working on another blog entry...which hopefully I will finish and post one of these days. It's been more than a week since I've worked on it though, and in the mean time Yahaira asked me to write about my story and perspective regarding our purpose in Peru. So here goes.
So what exactly are we doing down here?? Well a lot of things...much of which will only be fully discover and understood with time. Depending on who or when you are talking to us you may get a range of different ideas...Did we move to be missionaries? Did we leave our careers and sell our homes...abandon the typical American Dream hoping to live out lives with a different focus and purpose? Or did we move to do business, to make money, and become entrepreneurs? Well honestly, we may do a mix of all this things...but not a one of them describes our true purpose, our intent, our hopes and dreams in and of itself. We've all been called to something, we all have a unique purpose in this life...and the challenge (I think) is in listening to where and what that might be and being willing to follow. Even if it's different, even if you can't categorize it, study it, or give it a particular title. To give you some idea of my story in all this I'm going to go back a few years...actually about 15.
In my sophomore year of high school I thought I had it all (and figured out too!)...I went to a small Christian school in Kalamazoo, MI. Really small, like 25 kids per grade...so you pretty much knew all 100 kids in your whole high school. I played multiple sports, had a ton of fun and great friends, got rid of my glasses and my braces off the same month I got my drivers license...everything a 16 year old girl could ask for! I loved math (and honestly loved keeping up with the older kids, even beating the boys in that area)...so when I asked my trigonometry teacher what kind of job that I should get to do this all day every day and she replied Civil Engineering, it was settled. That school had been a safe haven for me during some pivotal years of my life, it was an environment that I thrived in academically, socially, and more importantly I grew tremendously in my walk with the Lord. I learned what it was to have a close, living-breathing, relationship with my Creator and with the wonderful people he had placed in my life. I desired to live passionately for God and to show other's His Love. Incidentally, it was also half way thru that year that I met Yahaira...and formed an instant friendship that neither one of us could have guessed all the Lord would have in store for.
The summer before my junior year my perfect bubble popped! There was a church in Florida experiencing a 'revival'...we had visited a number of times and been touched by what the Lord was doing there...and after much praying about it my mom, sister, and I really felt like the Lord was calling us to move there. Crazy, I know...It felt crazy, and honestly not everyone closest to us was on board with the change...heck I had a lot of days I struggled and even resented our decision. But there we were...and I started my Junior year 3 weeks late at a huge, rather ghetto public high school in one of the worst rated counties in the state of FL. (No seriously, 2000+ students, holes in the wall where lockers used to be...all the wrong classes and there was a brownout my first day so I honestly felt like I had walked into some weird version of "Sister Act"). First impressions: I was lost, alone, and different...my life would never be the same. And it wasn't...but it would all be good! Over the course of the next two years the Lord grew me in completely new ways. He stretched me out of my comfort zone. He showed me the importance of having relationships with people who are different from me...who came from different backgrounds...and ultimately who didn't all already 'know the Lord' the way I did. He stirred in me a desire to believe Him for the 'impossible' a heart for healing and for evangelism as I understood it then. I experienced revival (
www.thefreedictionary.com/revive) in my own life, in my church, and in my school.
Then came college...I think this was one of my first conscious steps towards a life of "dual calling". I could be wrong, but I think I might have surprised my youth pastor and mentor (maybe a lot of people, from church at least) when I decided I would pursue Engineering at the University of Florida rather that pursing a degree in (full time) ministry. You see it wasn't because I didn't feel called to ministry. I did, but I really wanted to do both. I knew that my love and ability for math (and learning) was God given...and I genuinely felt that pursing that was a part of living out who (and where) I was supposed to be.
When I first met John I didn't realize he had the same "dual calling" as I...I don't think either one of us recognized it. We had just started hanging out when I took him sailing (I was on the club sailing team at UF at the time). It was the two of us out in a small sailboat on a little lake with hardly any wind...I had started to fall for him (although I hand't admitted it to myself yet). He was a believer, a great christian guy but I remember asking him if he felt called to be a minister (or 'pastor'), and he emphatically replied "no". In that moment I remember thinking "well I guess he's not the man I'm going to marry, because I'm going to marry a Pastor". What!? You see at that time in my life I still very much identified the calling of ministry to be inevitably or eventually tied to having an official 'title' or even job within the structure of the church. I was off studying engineering, mind-you, so I really didn't have the duality or purpose in my own calling all sorted out but I some how knew I was called...and that I would fulfill my callings with another. Needless to say, he was the man I married...11 months later. John had just finished pharmacy school and begun his fellowship (the academic track) in clinical pharmacy...and I was in my 2nd year studying of civil engineering. And as it turns out, he was called to be a minister as I was. We are both (as Christians we are all) called to minister through our lives!
And so our first 8 or so wonderful years seemed to fly by. I finished my bachelors in Civil Engineering, got a Master's in Structural Engineering, and 3 years of work experience before becoming a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. I designed low-mid rise precast concrete buildings (a lot of parking garages to tell you the truth) for a small firm...and I loved it: the people, the calculating, the coordinating and planning. John was an associate professor by then, with a very rewarding and flexible university job (compared to typical engineering hours anyhow) and lots of opportunities for conferences and speaking engagements which led to numerous great travel opportunities for us. By the time I got pregnant with our son Ronan I was working very part-time hours doing consulting out of our house. I still greatly enjoyed engineering but in a far less 'traditional' role, allowing me the flexibility to travel and spend time with John as well as volunteer with the worship ministry at our church. We had always stayed quite involved leading and participating with our local Church actually. We both always had a heart to be apart of other's lives and to minister (and be ministered to by) those who God had placed in our lives.
The arrival of our son Ronan was another major shift in realizing the duality of my purpose and calling. Actually it was something the Lord had slowly been working on in me for a while leading up to his arrival. You see I studied and worked hard to be an engineer...and it can be rewarding occupation. I strove to succeed, to accomplish and excel at it. But as much as I saw myself as and engineer, I also saw myself as a worship and home-group leader, as a wife and one day as a mother. I felt (and was) called to do all of these things in one capacity or another, but I came to realize that..trying to take on all of them as "full time jobs" was impossible (for me at least). Even if I could cram it all in, I'd no longer be enjoying and fully 'present' and engaged in all of them at once. And so began the slow process letting go of my identity being hung on titles and job descriptions. Of trying to find peace and enjoyment in pursuing whatever path that I felt the Lord was leading...even if it didn't look like what we/I expect a classic "engineer" or "churchgoer" or "wife" or even "mother" to be. Of finding my own hybrid of what works best for my community, for my family, for my own sanity, and hopefully, no ultimately, for the Lord's glory. Could I accept the blessing and privilege of time to embrace my new role as mother without worrying about how it might effect, postpone, or change...my career...my professional/mathematical outlets? Most days, I was happy to do so, but it was a recurrent struggle, always constantly feeling like I should be excelling at both. Beyond that, were the people and ministry opportunities in my life as important as I'd like to say they were...and if so was I willing to sacrifice the time to make myself available for these things...or should I/we just continue to sprinkle this into our very busy personal/new family life?
This was where I was at in processing my own personal role around the time John's dad sat he and his brother's down to explain the status of businesses/investments in Peru...all of which ultimately/eventually belongs to the family. John's dad needed a hand with some things (or it would be time to give them up)...and although I don't think he ever dreamed any of the boys would actually move to Peru I think that may have been how it was processed on the other end. I remember watching the looks on each of the brother's faces as they listened that night: Danny (the youngest) still in college in the states with a minimum of 3 years to go; Richard (John's twin) with plans to go to Cambodia to help fight human trafficking; and John having well established his own career with the blessing of a great job, active church leadership, and way of life we all enjoyed. Each one having their own plans ahead of them, none of which involved returning to Peru in the near future.
And yet, despite the look that night on my husbands face, I knew immediately it was something we should at least pray about and seriously consider (and he had come around by morning as well). John and I had always talked about 'not growing old' in the States. About one day moving to another country...maybe using our knowledge and skills to help...about doing 'ministry' elsewhere one day....and about doing it with more of our time. Early in our marriage, I quit trying to learn Spanish while tying to learn Engineering and had surrendered myself to the idea of one day learning with my kids...or better yet by immersion for some 6 or 12 month 'sabbatical' in another country :-). We had always wanted our kids to really know another culture and language outside the U.S. This seemed like a great opportunity to step out and actually do some of these things while we had the chance. I think from the moment I heard about it, I knew a move to Peru was something that we should do...one day! The challenge for me came in it's timeline being 5-10 years ahead of the schedule I might have thought or chosen.
In the year that we spent praying and preparing for our move to Peru God was teaching us a lot, especially through our home-group family, about community and about our callings and purpose in this life. About accepting the possibility of radical changes to our way of thinking and to the way we live our lives. About trying to embrace the "dual calling" of a Life of Ministry....to really be 'in this world but not of it'...to live out our lives without trying to separate or compartmentalize the physical and spiritual aspects of them...to walk the whole of this life in a way that glorifies God and by his Love and Grace my draw other's to him. And the Lord knew what he was doing when he but us together with Virgil, Yahaira, and Eli (that is whole story, rather many stories, as well)...he has been laying a foundation of genuine community, of accountability and balance, between us our families for years.
So here we are...trying to live that out, trying to figure that out...what it looks like for us, for right now. Right now we know we are called to do business in Peru, we are called to minister in Peru, we are called to raise our families in Peru. Only the Lord knows exactly how and when and where. We believe he is giving us all that we need for today, and tomorrow, and will continue to teach us along the way. Pray for us, that we would always be listening and willing to follow his leading, to embrace his calling for our lives.
