Contract

I just signed a Contract.

For just an 8 letter word, it sure has some heavy connotations! Similar to the weight of words like
'subpoena'
or
'pregnant'.
(Ok, maybe that's a little over-dramatic, but you get the point.)

The contract I signed was a lease on a house for a year. Not such a big deal, but considering I've been living out of piles of clothes stuffed into one little cabinet and a hanging rack suspended between two window sills, it's like I finally signed my heart into the place I'll call home.

Granted, I've been here over 8 months already and I'm a lot more used to what is "normal" over here, but I never had anything "permanent." (If you can call a one-year lease that.)

For 3 months I lived out of a backpack as we traveled all over Thailand, then I spent 3 months in a small room filled with 3 bunkbeds and a bathroom, about 10 km from the nearest English-Speaker. And the last 2 months I've been living in a 2 bedroom townhouse with two other roommates with the intention of moving again by the end of May.

And now all of a sudden there's something grounding me. The cursive writing in blue ink surrounded by articles and conditions in a different kind of "cursive." I have a place to sleep, to relax, to have friends over and a place to escape when the ickyness that is lurking just below eye-level attempts to squeeze my heart of the last few drops and force me to give up or search airline ticket prices.

This is home. Not because I'll soon have a room filled with things I put there, or because we'll have friends hanging out on the couch (once we buy one), but it'll be home because God brought me here.

But this has already been home. It has been ever since God stepped off the plane with me back in September. But now the difference is that I have a legal document testifying what my heart feels - it just took me awhile to let it have a pen.

God Juggling

I used to love writing.
I guess I just loved the way I could mold words to fit my purpose and there wasn't any space of time allotted for my response like in a standard conversation. If you pause for too long it can be misread as lack of focus, or boredom, or even downright rude.
Not in writing. The punctuation speaks for itself and gets the point across.

Ask anybody and they'll say their lives are busy; and rightly so, with work, kids, bills and whatever else you're involved in. We're all warned of this from infancy; "enjoy your freedom before you have a job/family/mortgage."
But writing still allows for a break occasionally. The same as reading a good book that actually takes more than an hour to read. Engaging with what is typed as the story progresses. Much the same way a movie can stir emotions and leave you pondering the plot for hours or days after the fact.

I guess what I'm really trying to say, is that I don't know how to live this "missionary life." Taking a day to chill at a coffee shop and write, or read a book hardly counts for "ministry" in my mind. I'm having difficulty allowing myself to have fun that isn't directly related the work I'm being supported to do. When I worked a 9-5, the paycheck that I got bi-weekly was in direct correlation with the amount of time spent obtaining said finances. Therefore the effort invested in the job allowed for life outside work to be lived without troubling the mind. But how do you clock-in and out of ministry?

How do you juggle friends, fun, and God time?