17 hours

Well...
Our staging event is over and in less than 17 hours Tina and I will be on a plane on our way to Africa.

First thanks for all the encouraging comments. I know we have only been away for a few short hours but for us it is already beginning to feel as though it has been a lifetime.

Our staging has been an intense time of looking at some of the most difficult things that we may face over the next few months and years. There have been several times where it was definitely gut check time. And after checking our gut, I am reassured that we have made the right decision.

To be honest, up until this point, Tina and I were the only people I knew who were either crazy enough or stupid enough to think that Peace Corps was something that sounded appealing. It made me feel...special...sometimes in good ways because many of you have told us "good job, I am proud of you, you are perfect for the Peace Corps, etc." and other times not so a good. There were feelings of separation, being different, feelings of guilt many people don't experience about leaving people I care about behind. Once we got here though I met 20 other people who were crazy and stupid enough to think that Peace Corps was a good idea. And it was reassuring. During training I found out that there are over 8,000 people serving with the Peace Corps right now. And my thought now is no longer "Am I crazy?" my thought is instead "8,000+ people do this everyday; thus, so can I."

I could write about how I am feeling nervous or excited or both, but the truth is, I'm not feeling any of those things. Well, not to the extent that I was feeling them the last few months. Those feelings have faded into something better I think. I am still excited but not in the roller coaster going over the hill kind of way. More like the excitement you feel when you realize for the first time that a decision you made at a certain point in time was exactly the right decision. I think the emotion is confidence. Not the bull-headed naive confidence of just graduating college and being able to jump into a job and know everything-there-is-to-know without asking a single person. It is the quiet confidence when everything is at peace in your mind; everything has been reconciled, and I am ready to move forward.

I am starting to tear up as I sit here writing this because I know what I have to write next.

We won't be able to update our blog or read your comments for a while. For the next two and half to three months we'll be training big time. Complete immersion in culture language and technical stuff. So, no news is good news. I hope the next few months will treat you well. We'll update again maybe the end of November-ish.

This is me, signing of for now,

good night

3 Days to Go

Well there are three days left before we leave. The last two weeks have been... well... interesting. I think, though, they have mostly been good. The problem has been that we are trying to catch up with everyone before we go. See, everyone we get together with is another goodbye; it's a bitter-sweet time for us.

One other reason that things have been interesting is the fact that this is really happening. Tina and I started the process of becoming Peace Corps volunteers in March of 2007. It has been for us a vague idea that was always just around the corner. One of those things that, if we were to chase it, it would flit away like a butterfly. We have sacrificed so much to become a part of this amazing adventure and for so long it seemed like that was the thing itself, the sacrifice and process, and now it seems all of a sudden it is not a butterfly flitting about. It is reality. We are going to be living in a place where we will be the only white face for a hundred miles. We will be trying to cultivate relationships with people who are very different from ourselves. We will be striving to do REAL good. We will test ourselves, our marriage, our faith, the very essence of ourselves in the coming and months...and...it scares me to death.

It is a good type of scare though. It is the scare you get those few seconds before you make a decision that will impact the rest of our life. The scare you feel when you select a college, or get down on one knee with a ring in your pocket, or actually move out of your parents house (I may not be able to say that because I STILL haven't moved out of there, in fact I just put a whole bunch back in last month but I digress). It is the fear that wells up inside when you know the next few moments will change your life, not for the good or bad, not one way or the other, but just change it somehow.

Lastly the reason I say these weeks have been interesting is because we have been shopping for stuff non-stop. At least it feels that way. And anyone who knows Tina and I knows just how much we love shopping (please read with the fully intended sarcasm). This is interesting because half of the appeal of Peace Corps service for me was to learn what it would be like to truly live simply; to live without the stuff that we have that tends to cause so many complications; no cars, TV, computers, ringing phones, blah, blah, blah. And here I am the last few weeks trying to decide if I should find a way to buy and pack one of those solar powered lawn light things, you know the ones you put next to the side walk, just so I can have a light in my hut/house whichever the case may be. I mean come on. Am I really as dependent on this stuff as my brain is telling me I am? I feel like maybe I've woven my life into this complicated junk so much that I might not be able to really experience living simply, and I am left to ponder if that is bad or no.