Called to serve...

Several years ago I was riding in a car with a boy who, though I didn't know it at the time, would break my heart into so many pieces I wondered if it could ever be truly whole again. Of course now in retrospect, I am more than whole than I ever have been and thank my stars it ended up just how it did. Yet another indicator of many in my life that God knows a lot more about me and what I really need than I do. I like having Him in my corner.

But I'm not here to talk about all that...

I'm here to tell you that as I was riding in the car with this boy, it was Halloween or near Halloween, and it was somewhat a pseudo-date-hang-stupid-thing going to this party and that party together.Clearly very promising foundation to build upon. Oh the red flags we spot in retrospect. As we were playing the “get to know you” game, I don’t recall what question he asked me nor the vein of the conversation. I do remember however, that I mentioned how I had been looking into the Peace Corps and was considering applying to serve as a volunteer. His response to that, to this wee barely 22 year old starry eyed girl who wanted so much to impress this, silly boy, was laughter, mockery, and patronization: “HA! Peace Corps is for bitter old  ugly chicks who can’t get married. It’s for tree-huggin hippies and pot heads.”  He proceeded to make fun of anyone who would choose such a path because it was clearly based on bitterness, loneliness, and boredom.  The thought that people would choose to join such a worldwide service organization for experience, perspective, and the vast opportunity to do something outside of yourself was inconceivable to him – particularly why a woman would want to do such a thing (ya know, instead of have babies... cause you can't do both). And any woman who wanted to participate, well, that wasn’t a woman for him. To think I could've figured out that he was not someone I wanted to be with in those first 2 hours of interaction instead of wasting 24 months trying to prove to this person I was worth it. I guess we all have one of those.

But I'm not here to talk about that either...

Entering the Peace Corps didn’t stick that year. I had college, I had other plans, I had growing up to do and I can’t say it wasn’t because of this naive boy’s ill-informed opinion and narrow perspective (who, by the way, is now around 33, still single, living in perpetual man-childishness and to my knowledge, has yet to kiss a girl… soooo… I win). I can’t say it was. All I can say is, 6 years removed from that car ride that I can still as clearly in my mind as the night it happened, the timing is more right now then it was then for a lot of reasons. It’s more right now than it was 3 years ago when I almost submitted my application again after getting laid off from my first teaching job. But... didn't. Why? I don't know. Because. Because it wasn't the right reasons... the right time... and I wasn't the right person yet.

However, all that shifted because as you know, I submitted my application to be a Peace Corps volunteer  and the reasons are my reasons and, I believe, God's reasons and all the reasons I know a lot more now why it's time to press forward in more profound ways then it was 3 or 6 years ago. What’s more, none of those reasons for joining or previously not joining have anything to do with being single and angry and bored; and that's a good feeling. Contrary to popular local culture, my life does not revolve around my marital status. Rather, I want my world to revolve around nothing to do with me at all. I want my gravitational pull to be towards other people  – and that’s why…

 I will be serving the good people of the
Pacific Islands for 27 months starting June 2013. 

I guess the best thing I've gotten out of this experience so far is the stark realization I'm not that barely turned 22 year old riding in a red Jetta with a boy who doesn't know what he is missing. I win again.