Bag packing

Packing suitcases is always a big challenge - what do you put in?  what do you leave behind?  what is indispensable?  what isn't really needed?  I am always intrigued when I return from a trip to see what never got used. I suppose I am one of those people who puts things in 'just in case'.  But as I leave for Kenya on this trip I am having to think about three different types of journey - and I am not sure whether the task is made any easier by the fact that I have just discovered that we can take two 23kg suitcases per person. O the choice of what to take and what to leave! Most immediately there is the family holiday to consider.  That part is easy - swimsuit, mask and snorkel, cotton clothes, sandals, bird book, binoculars (yes I am a birdwatcher!) .  But then there is my 4 week secondment to the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and to Philemon Kenya.  Will I need any books to help prepare sermons?  Better take Common Order me thinks.  It's a funny feeling leaving my library behind. I have been so immersed in books over the past few years and now I will be standing in a foreign country, miles from Scotland with nothing but the Bible and all I have ingested through years of study and placements.  Then there is the actual move out to Kenya which I will be making later in the year.  What can I take out now that I might need later?  My youngest son, Aidan, will be starting school in Nairobi in August and he is packing all his worldly goods into 2 suitcases.  What baggage we accrue as we go through life.  In fact one of the good things about moving is that you get a chance to throw out all the junk that you never use or wear.  Preparing for moving to Kenya is also an opportunity to look at what I will find most useful in all the training I have undertaken and what bits I may end up leaving aside.  As circumstances change different skills and attitudes are needed at different times.  This can be unsettling but the lure of a new place, new people, new situations always outweighs any reservations I might have.  I have found it is the same with my faith as well.  As new questions arise, as I face new situations, as I meet others and listen to their point of view I have a chance to reflect on what baggage I have been carrying around from the past, what is useful and what needs thrown out. So my cases are packed - but only for the journey. Its not good to pack things away for too long.

Wot? No guidebook?

When I started training for the ministry I knew that it had to be a step at a time.  I had no big vision of where God was calling me.  I had no certain answers as to what God was calling me to.  All I knew was that God had called me to follow a certain path and that my task was to follow obediently.  I had vague notions about being on the edge - and working in team.  But that was about it.  Now as I look back over the past few years I see how what seemed disparate strands have all come together in a rich tapestry of experience infused with a passion for ministry to people affected by imprisonment - inside and out, themselves and their families.  There is no guidebook for this sort of work.  It is something that  grows organically - through relationship, through opportunities - making them and responding to them, through praying and listening to that still small voice which suggests ridiculous things.

So here I am with whole new vistas opening up in front as I stand amazed at the way, without any orchestration on my part, so many things, people, situations, events ...  are falling into place as I move towards ordination.  And there may be no guidebook on what lies ahead but I know a good guide...