Ceremonies

      I wanted to take the opportunity to give a quick update on ministry and life as it has been since my last post. Much has been happening, and I can almost see God turning a page of my life which I have anticipated for the last four years with much apprehension and wonder as to what would be contained in the next chapter. 

      Regarding ministry, things have been going very well, but there is so much to do before camp starts! Raising support and preparing for my role during the summer have been my two main focal points, and both have added to the excitement of the season about to begin. Thus far I have been only meeting with supporters in person, but I am planning on sending out letters (finally!) this afternoon. My hope is that those will help begin relationships and start conversations that will carry over into next fall when I will be able to really focus on this aspect of my ministry. Roles for the summer are looking exciting too, as I am currently preparing for weekend excursions for our staff team, planning a staff medical prevention and emergency policies and procedures talk to give during staff training, and brainstorming how to put the wheels on some new alumni events we will be looking at starting next fall!

      I have had it on my current prayer requests since I started this blog that I would be able to finish college well, and it is a praise for me to be able to say that (by much grace!) I graduated from college last weekend on Saturday. I remember seeing on Thursday night that my grades had been posted and felt the finality of passing and being completely done - not that I needed my grades to be posted to know whether or not I was going to graduate, but there was that one class that was making me a little nervous! My friends chuckled as I walked around the place we were celebrating with a huge grin on my face repeating, “I’m done! I’m officially an alumni!” 

 

      The next several days put the finishing touches on the process with all of my immediate and extended family coming into town for the graduation ceremony. Luckily I was the only one that had to sit through the whole thing, but more than anything I felt sorry for our university president – by the time my ceremony was finished he had either shook hands or given hugs to over 3000 people in two days! To quote his final words of the ceremony: “It’s been an extraordinary day for all of us.” 

      As we sat around and had lunch together I was asked if I had any pieces of wisdom that I had learned from college that I wanted to share – and for the first time in a long time I felt like I didn’t know what to say. Not because there weren’t any lessons I had learned, but to the contrary - there were so many I didn’t even know where to start. The lessons learned from friendship, teamwork, personal and professional conflict, fear, responsibility, faith, risk, and wisdom all seemed to flood back to me at once as I tried to think of just one where I could use a story to show a principle, but instead it resulted in a feeling of crushing nostalgia and gratitude for seeing where all God had taken me, and how the stories and lessons that made sense in hindsight lent the faith that was needed for the ones that had not yet reached their conclusion. 

 

      And that is how my undergraduate college career ended; a rushing blur of family, ceremony, and “last times” whose significance was attempted to be felt but probably never fully understood. Perhaps those final memories’ importance will become more tangible after the end of the summer when a new city is moved to, new relationships are made, and the pulse of my alma mater will no longer be able to be felt by simply walking around the town. 

      But perhaps the best part - and what holds my hope – is the fact that God’s not finished. I am definitely sad about having to leave my friends, the city, and the culture that I have come to love over the last four years, but an ending like this also means a new beginning. For my journey it means one of an opportunity to do something that I love, for a purpose I believe in, and with people that I am honored and excited to be laboring. There is much to be grateful for in a moment where one can look back and see very tangibly the time that has passed and the lessons that have been learned, but, for me at least, it appears that the next chapter has the potential to be just as scintillating and exhilarating as the last. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please remember me in your prayers!

 My family after the graduation ceremony: 

Diploma!