Roller Coaster Ride

Our journey begins in earnest today. This is our final day at Akron in our Leadership Orientation. I have often thought of a roller coaster ride as a metaphor for acting on significant decisions in my life and the metaphor came back to me this week.

You know how a roller coaster ride feels. You spend all that time waiting in line in anticipation. You are excited and brag to your friends that it's not a big deal, you've done roller coasters before. Sure this one is bigger and badder than the last one but you can handle it. As you get to the platform you look up at the first hill, you could change your mind right now and walk away. But you don't. Then it's your turn to get into the coaster. Again, you feel some trepidation and you could get up and go with some excuse (I have to go to the bathroom, so sorry). But you stay and the attendant straps you in. Even now you could shout, "Stop!" and the safety conscious attendants would stop and let you out.

But then comes the moment when the coaster pulls away from the platform and the click-click-click begins, taking you up that first huge hill. You are locked in. No turning back. Doesn't matter how you are feeling, you've gotta go through with it . . . and that first hill is a doozy. But the ride is exhilarating, exciting and upon exiting the ride you want to go again.

So we are at the platform of the roller coaster station. It's exciting and scary to think about. Soon the click-click-click of the beginning of the ride will happen, Monday is only 72 hours away. We are not locked in yet, but all the plans are in place.

We leave Akron with many great memories. All these people in the photo have become good friends in a short time. But like those days of schooling (university, seminary, etc.) when you live, work and play intensely for a period of time, the day inevitably comes when you must say good-bye and scatter. We are all assigned places around the world; Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, India, Syria, Ethiopia, Jordan, West Africa, South Africa, Washington D.C. and here at Akron. As Billy Joel once sang, "I've loved these days". The lunches where we got to know each other better, the daily devotionals, even the long sessions full of valuable information that overwhelmed us in the end (in computer terms, "memory almost full").

I cannot finish without a mention of our trip to the Material Resource Center near here. MCC still sends material aid to where it is needed. Our partners (local folks in all the countries we are in) ask and we try to respond. Pictured below is a ship's container on a semi truck full of education kits, over 40,000, for Liberia. When a container is full, staff and volunteers at the MRC will gather to say a prayer for safe passage and a blessing upon the contents, that it may get to those who need the aid. We saw so many amazing things (30,000 cancer kit binders to be thrown away were salvaged and turned into more education kits for children around the world) and heard so many amazing tales (MCC blankets being sent to Darfur to the delight of the people. The story is told that initially the leaders said no to the 12,000 blankets but after a promise of quality and the rep of MCC, they relented. They were used to a non-descript UN thin, blue-gray blanket. When the thick, hand-crafted brilliantly colorful MCC blankets arrived they were stunned. Now they are asking for more . . .) we feel privileged to be a part of such a quality NGO (non-governmental organization).

Remember us as we travel on Monday (Cleveland-Chicago-Frankfurt, Germany on July 2-3. A 24 hour layover on July 3. Leave July 4, Frankfurt-Khartoum, Sudan-Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 8:45 p.m. on the 4th).