live. move. be.

One of the best things about my job is the variety. Some days I sit at a desk typing on a computer for hours, and other days I am racing around like a mad woman. The best days are the ones when I get to spend time with the refugees themselves, when I can actually share a few minutes or a few hours of someone's life with them. A few days ago I stopped by to visit some Bhutanese clients and they invited me to sit down on the couch. We sat around mostly in silence, except for their few phrases of English and my three words of Nepali, just this big refugee family sitting and staring at me. They brought in a plate filled with small cups of tea that was unlike any tea I've ever tasted....very milky and sweet and incredibly spicy. They taught me how to say "hot tea": tatu chia. They clapped and laughed and cheered when I strung these two simple words together, and it made me wonder if anyone has ever down that for them when they learned two words of English....I doubt it. I said it over and over again. Tatu chia, tatu chia, tatu chia, and each time they were more delighted. "You are so smart," they said happily, and tapped my head. "You remember good." They have probably experienced more trauma and pain then I will ever know, and yet they are here with me, smiling and laughing.

So I have these beautiful moments. They aren't the norm, but they are always a joy and a gift, and they remind me why I am here. These are moments when I think, "I can't imagine being anywhere but here. I can't imagine doing anything but this." I know I am where I am supposed to be.

1) Turning 21 in Prague. This was amazing not only because its my favorite city in the world, but the friends who made it special. And the most yummy birthday meal ever.

2)Living with roommates who have cats/kittens. None of these have been mine, but playing with Babar and Italics on a regular basis has been a highlight of my days (besides getting bitten a lot).

3) Learning to cook. I'm no gourmet chef yet, but at least I'm doing more than microwaving these days.

4) Living in Glasgow, one of the coolest, edgiest, hipest cities ever, for four months. Even just walking to get groceries was a thrill!

5) Eating crepes and bagettes in Paris by the Seine. Ahhhh....

6) Seeing the Swell Season and Sara Groves perform live....two of the best concerts I've ever had the pleasure of attending.

7) Reading Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools, and Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Go read these books.

8) Seeing the grave of Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

9) Camping under the desert stars in the New Mexico wilderness

10) I became a college graduate! Not that it means much these days...

11) Experiencing a snowstorm in the middle of June in the Colorado Rockies.

12) Eating Dijon mustard in Dijon, France, and a hamburger in Hamburg, Germany.

13) Meeting my Scottish friends Roddy and Fiona, witnessing their engagement, and being a bridesmaid in their wedding in Scotland, all in one year. I couldn't have imagined anything so wonderful :)

14) Meeting new friends from Scotland, Germany, France, India, New Zealand, Poland, and America, to name a few. The best part of traveling is getting to know so many wonderful people from such wildly diverse backgrounds!

15) Having one last semester to really savor and appreciate the fact that I was studying two subjects I loved. I miss both Dance and English classes these days.

16) Working with refugees as a volunteer, an intern, and now as a full time case manager. It is both the most challenging and most rewarding thing I have ever done.

17) Eating fresh vegetables from our garden and homemade barbeque this summer with my family. Yummy!

18) Reuniting with one of my best friends after over a year apart. This is a testament to the love of Christ being strong enough to cover all wrongs and heal all wounds, and I am so eternally grateful.

19) Getting a job that pays the bills. These are hard to come by these days, so I am really thankful. I have the added bonus of doing something I'm passionate about, which is incredible.

20) My new apartment, with two wonderful girls who just took me out for pumpkin chocolate chip cake to celebrate my birthday!

This week, I have experienced so many different emotions in the course of a few days on the job....excitement, fear, stress, anxiety, and confusion, to name a few. Working with refugees is a scary thing, because it's sink or swim, and if you sink, it feels like you're drowning your clients along with you. I have come home the past few nights feeling so burdened that I was afraid I might snap or cry if someone tried to talk with me....and I have not begun to tackle the truly difficult elements of my job yet. One night I was watching a movie with my new friend/co-worker, and she saw me trying to work on my to-do list. Her reaction was the best possible thing for me: she promptly threw my list and my planner across the room and forced me to simply relax instead. I can see how easily people become workaholics and why it's so hard to turn that part of your brain off when you leave the office.

These days, I have been thinking a lot about peace and how much I lack it. I am hungry for peace, for a deep soul rest that permeates my long days and busy hours, that guards my anxious mind and my hurting heart in a work environment where I daily see injustice and experience frustration at the systems of this world. My pastor recently made an interesting connection between peace and gratitude, which makes so much sense to me the more I think about it. I want to be grateful for the good things I see in this job and grateful for the opportunities I will have to change the bad things. If you are someone who prays, pray for peace and gratitude to fill my life and overflow into the lives around me.

Here's the great thing: so far, I have woken up every day feeling happy to go into work. Exhausted, yes, but determined and excited to tackle the day. Not optimistically, naively happy about somehow changing the world, but ready to do whatever I can to help transform my own tiny corner of the world. There is a great sense of contentment and joy in doing what you know you're supposed to be doing, in extending a chance for survival and hope into a person's life, in knowing that you are spending your days working towards something that is at the very heart of God. I know that positive emotions such as these can never be the motivation or the end goal of such work, or they will only lead to burnout and bitterness.... Nevertheless, they are such a blessing in this realm which often seems so bleak, a daily grace in a world where grace is so scarce. I am so helpless in all that I do without the grace and peace of Christ.

Tomorrow is the first day of my brand new, 9 to 5, real adult job. I feel like it's the first day of high school all over again....I am very nervous, very excited, and mulling over countless outfit possibilities. And now I'm sitting in bed typing this because I am too full of anticipation to sleep. Let's be honest: this might be the only day I will ever feel excited about waking up to go to work, so I'm going to savor the feeling while it lasts.