August 05, 2005
What God Has Been Doing in My Life Lately, Part II
\
Fall 2003
I am appreciating everybody's comments. I left off talking about my decision to go to Slovakia, something that kind of cemented itself at the Howard family crab feast in Silver Spring, MD. I mentioned meeting Kathy Miner. She is a friend of mine that excited me about the prospect of moving to Slovakia.
Well, the idea was actually first planted in my head by my brother Ty who had studied abroad in Slovakia for a semester and had become close friends with the Lesondak family, the missionary family who pioneered an MTW (Mission to the World) mission in Trnava, Slovakia called "The Building." John Lesondak modeled his idea for The Building somewhat on Francis Schaeffer's L'Abri institute in Switzerland. A week at The Building has a lot in common with L'Abri. There are community dinners, film viewings and discussions, academic lectures, and casual opportunties for coffee, tea, and fellowship. The Building is oriented mostly toward university students in its approach but it has in fact drawn a unique blend of many ages due to a variety of circumstances. The idea behind The Building is that there would be a "safe" atmosphere in Trnava for the unbeliever to discuss and question the truths of Christianity and the many common grace truths about God that can be seen all throughout creation and culture.
As mentioned, my brother had often recommended the Lesondak's ministry at The Building to me and I had often considered it as a viable option for something to do after college. And it just so happened that I had not actually finished college yet. I still had to finish my SIP (Senior Integration Paper) and my Cross-Cultural credit, which is given for having and writing about a significant cross-cultural experience. So the idea of taking the fall to finish my SIP and raise support to intern in Slovakia, an internship I could gain my cross-cultural credit for, seemed like a really good idea. The idea cemented itself in my mind when I learned that Kathy Miner would be spending the year there as well. Kathy and I had become friends at the Howard family crab feast and I was encouraged by the idea of having somebody else my age to go through the experience with. It also helped that John Lesondak had been in Chattanooga that summer and I was able to seal the deal with him fairly fast. I was quickly approved by MTW and began raising my support.
Unfortunately, I had quit my job at Tortilla Factory due to the high stress of waiting on drunks till 3 in the morning sometimes, and so I needed to find another job that I could work for just a few months before it was time to go to Slovakia. Some of you may appreciate just how hard it is to find a good job in Chattanooga, and it is even more difficult when you cant commit for more than a few months. And so I settled for a pretty mediocre job for even more mediocre pay. I was to work the beverage bar and later on the deli line for the Covenant College food service, Chartwells.
The idea of working for Chartwells did have its perks. I liked it mostly because I would be able to see the Covenant community every day twice a day, breakfeast and lunch. I was able to stay involved in the lives of my friends who were still at Covenant and continue to build important friendships every day as they walked through the lunch line. It had its perks.
But it was also tough on my self-esteem. It wasn't a very difficult job and certainly didnt require a college education. But I did have Tyler Grisham who worked alongside me everyday at the make-to-order bar, and we were able to make the most of our lot in life with a lot of humor and top five lists.
But I still needed more than my job to make my life meaningful in those days. So I filled up my time outside of work primarily with three things: acting in the school play, Sabrina Fair (my first school play, I played the part of Linus Larrabee), writing my SIP on the Epistemology of Testimony, and corresponding with Kathy Miner, who was already in Slovakia and who would continue to give me exciting news of what was going on over there.
I think I'll talk about those things more in another segment.