This morning I woke up...

     This morning I woke up...it's a cold, blustery, damp sort of day: the kind of day that makes you want to stay snuggled under the covers and not come out. However, the unrelenting alarm, and the sounds of a persistant mosquito buzzing around my ears, coax me from my bed and into the cold morning air. It feels good, the contrast between winter chill, and comfortable coziness. Winter has been very delayed in her coming, and though it might change again tomorrow, it's nice to get a taste of the season.

It's been a loooong time since I've posted here. And so much has happened in between. The longer
 I've waited, the more complicated the story became. So I've thought long and hard how to introduce this new stage in my life on this forum. So here it goes.

For starters, I'm a college graduate now. Thats's right, my days as a student are over and I now know everything (I've the paper to prove it). As often happens with in debt college graduates, plans were formed, and job hunts ensued. As I've graduated with a TESL certificate, teaching seemed a good place to start, so I searched for a teaching job. One that afforded some ministry opportunities. I had hoped to find something a little closer to home this time. The novelty of being a hopeless wanderer had long since worn off, and I hoped God was on the same page as I was. "We're done right?" I asked told Him, "No more new places for awhile." Well God has a habit of promptly ignoring me, when I ask tell Him how to run things, and this time was no different.

As it turned out, while finding a job in Ireland, was not necessarily impossible,  I somehow ended up emailing someone a little farther away. I'm going to make a long story very short, and say that I got a job teaching at a lovely little kindgergarten. It took some humbling, some prayer, and a very insightful and candid conversation with my sister, to realize that I actualy wanted to go. Maybe in the future there will be a time when roots can be established, when life can be a little less crazy, but that's never been what God wanted for me, and I find that I'm not ready for the craziness to stop. And I keep rolling down that hill, because who needs moss?! I take other things with me: people, experiences, loss, hurt, fear, love, and joy, all rolled together.

I've been here three months. I've setted (as settled as I can be) into life here. I'm enjoying my work at the kindgergarten, much more than I ever thought I would. Life is a constant adventure. Culture shock takes on a whole new meaning, as frustrations, discoveries, and hilarious misunderstandings unfold daily. All the while God is slowly taking me apart bit by bit: dealing with my pride and wrenching idols from my tightly clasped hands. I go to bed exhausted, and somehow wake up ready to do it all over again in a totally different way.

So God is not done with me, and I'm ok with that. The last time I wrote in this blog, I was in Ireland, but this morning I woke up in China.