"And now compelled by the Spirit, I am going...

to McDaniel College,
though I know now what will be happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace." - paul to the ephesian church (acts 20:22-24)

the LORD had released me from my time of serving at johns hopkins (6 years!) and was sending me onto mcdaniel college. and despite some scary unknowns, i knew that my life call was and would continue to be to testify to the good news of GOD's grace to the next generation...

in some ways- this calling seemed like a "duh!" moment.

• i had a great working relationships with josh. we had always enjoyed serving together and had dreamed off and on about what it would be like to actually serve together on the same campus.
• i had developed a great rapport over the years with mcdaniel students. i had spoken at their wednesday nite fellowship meetings at least twice a year since coming to the baltimore area and i always enjoyed the time i spent with students.
• the campus culture was very community oriented and spiritually open. it was a "sweet spot" to use my gift mix of evangelism, high relational and incarnational ministry style and creativity.
• my going to mcdaniel seemed like a perfect "fit" for me- which was confirmed by all of my ministry partners and ross.

so- YAY! onto mcdaniel!

BUT....

as the pieces of this calling came together- I realized several things...
1) this was a call- not only to me- but to my entire family- we all needed to hear from the Holy Spirit that we were to move on...
from our life in baltimore-
our friends
our great house and neighborhood
our amazing church community
xixi's great preschool
our chinese adoption community
our love of charm city urban life

to "quiet carroll county living"

it was one thing to change campus assignments- I had done that already- U of Illinois, Loyola College, Johns Hopkins

it was entirely different thing to up and move.

we had done that 7 years prior with some painful outcomes in the process.

there were a few SCARY unknowns about this new calling to go to mcdaniel college- and before I was ready to go for it- i knew i had to wrestle with GOD about them. here were a few of the SUWIs (scary unknown wrestling items)

• will we find a good church community?
• will we be able to foster xixi's ethnic identity development in a similar way as we were able to in baltimore?
• how long will i even stay on staff? is a move worth it if we don't know?
• will we develop new friends and deep, meaningful relationships here?

good thing GOD can handle my wrestling matches

and it's awesome when GOD speaks to the SUWIs deep in my soul...