I’m sure many of you have had experiences in your life where you felt lead to do something, then made a plan and set out to do it, only to find that God had a slightly different plan for you. I am convinced that this is where I am supposed to be, but I am still figuring out day by day why I am here and what I am here to do. I came to volunteer with orphans, and my organization wanted me to teach dance. This, however, has not worked out in reality as well as in theory. In the 7 weeks I have been here I have taught about 6 dance classes total, when the original plan was for me to teach two classes a day 4 days a week. I am teaching 6 English classes a week and loving it, when I thought I would hate it. I am building relationships with people I never would have expected to. I have been able to support and encourage those who have been working here for months or years and will be here after I leave. In a way my life here is nothing like I expected it would be, and in some ways I feel like I am failing at what I came here to do. But at the same time, regardless of what kind of work I end up doing, I came to simply live here. To do life here. To live the way of Jesus here, just as I should back home. As I wrote in my post about the title of this blog, faith and love are things we actively participate in. People often talk about Jesus as being the way, but I think this kind of language completely misses the point. Jesus shows us the way, and we are to become disciples of this way of life. No matter where in the world I find myself at any given time, my purpose is to enact the kingdom of God on Earth, whatever shape or form that takes on at the time. As always, I am continuing to learn to let go of my own plans. I probably never would have come to Vietnam if the plan didn’t involve working with orphans, and although I have been able to do that it has been a much smaller part of my time here than I thought it would be. And that’s ok, because loving people is certainly not confined to the hours that I am doing organized volunteer work.
