  Happy New Year! It is January 1, 2003 everyone! Only 4 more days before I am off to Europe again. Janice called me "cosmo girl" the other day. Maybe I am, but I don't really think of myself in that way. I just want to see the world and be in the world, and I want to get "good at" going from country to country. There's been a recent drive in me to learn languages, and I think a part of that drive is a desire to adapt in as many places as I can, as well as I can. So I am simultaneously working on my French, Spanish , and Korean. A friend also told me yesterday that Japanese is very similar in structure to Korean, so perhaps I can take up Japanese someday too. And if I brush up on my Latin from high school, that might open doors to learn other Latinate languages too, if I ever need to. Who knows where God might call me, and it's important to me to be working on learning languages consistently. It's not so much that I want to be heptalingual or anything...I honestly don't think I will ever be totally fluent in any of these languages, except maybe Korean. However the process of learning another language reminds me of the world out there, and that perspective is very important to me.
Learning languages helps reveal to me the glory of who God is. Language is beautiful, because it is a part of God's image. He chose to create using words-- "Let there be light, and it was so...", He chose to communicate with us through the Holy Word. And of course, Jesus himself is "The Word". The many languages of the world give me a glimpse into God's infinite nature and kaleidoscopic beauty....
But why travel so much? This goes back to something I wanted to write a long time ago in relation to missions, something God showed me when I was in Europe this past summer. While I was in Paris, I was struggling with the question, "Why do I keep traveling instead of going on mission trips? " I haven't been on a mission trip since high school, and the one I did go on in high school was a short 9 day trip to Mexico, just south of the border. I could hardly call it a mission trip....it was more like an outreach excursion. But when I was in Paris, I met people from many different parts of the world....Germany, Japan, Korea, Africa, Sweden, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, etc. I especially got along with my friends from Spain....we had a blast in Paris together. Interestingly, I hung out so much with them and all their Spanish friends that my ears actually opened to Spanish again by the end of my stay, even though I hadn't touched Spanish since high school. What I mean by that is, though I still couldn't really communicate myself in Spanish, I could understand nearly all of what they were saying. I couldn't even understand that much when I was in high school! My friend Jaime and I had brunch together in our last week in Paris, and this is how we communicated-- he spoke in Spanish while I spoke in English.
And our communication was actually very effective like that, because both our listening skills are much better than our speaking skills in our foreign languages. Haha, we sure got stared at a lot. ^^ So it was only in that last week that we could even start talking about substantive topics, since before that point, we had been trying to communicate in our broken, baby French. Anyways, it was my Spanish friends' idea that I come to Spain and visit them and study Spanish. They got really excited when they saw me growing in my comprehension skills, and we got closer because of it.
The thing is, I had been planning on finally going on a mission trip this winter, so I struggled with what to do. But after a lot of prayer, God showed me that the two-- traveling vs. missions -- didn't have to be mutually exclusive. Missions is a lot about forming relationships with nonbelievers and showing them the gospel in word and in deed, and God showed me that missions doesn't have to be performed in discrete segments that have a beginning and an ending (ie, short term mission trips), but can be fluid and just a part of your life. I started relationships with my Spanish friends, and I can continue them, and this trip might be my chance to share about my faith with them. Or at least be the light of Christ in their Christ-less world. And God showed me that this is how my life will be as a long term missions-minded person....people will come into my life who need Christ, and my part is just to love them, to pray for them, and to show them the gospel. For all I know, I might be the only one praying for my friends Jaime and Cova... If tentmaking missions is going to be my life, then I need to learn how to saturate every part of my life with the gospel. That includes my interests, whether it be traveling, or literature, or singing/dancing, or friendships, or my job, or family, etc.
So I think it is a blessing that I get to see Jaime and Cova again, improve my Spanish, and enjoy some traveling. All these things can bring glory to God, and all these things can be a part of the missions work. Of course, if I am not focused upon Christ, then all these things can become idols in themselves. Please pray that that does not happen. Please pray that my trip to Spain is totally and completely God-centered.
And this all goes back to my 12/22 entry. You can see how God is teaching me the same lesson over and over again, because it's taking me forever to actually get it. To actually trust Him with my whole being. To love Him first and foremost-- heart, soul, and mind. To let Him lead me whenever He appoints the time, doing whatever He wants me to do, being whoever He wants me to be.
One thing that keeps resurfacing for me is this: God does not fit into the prescribed parameters we often set for Him. We are inadequate judges for how He is "supposed" to work in the world. He is more imaginative and creative than we could ever dream of, because that's part of His Holy beauty. Isn't it wonderful when He takes the quotidian and does the spectacular? That's the gospel, isn't it? That's what Jesus did. So it makes sense to me that that magnificent creativity, that unexpected reversal of pattern, that turning of water into wine, would translate into the lives of His people too. And off I am to Spain, an ordinary person doing an ordinary thing, but set apart because of Christ in me. "TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 
