Almost a Year

Well, it's been almost a year back here in Canada. Some days it seems hard to believe that we've already been back here a year, on other days it feels like we never left Winnipeg at all, that AMBS was just a dream (with periodic nightmares!). Last year at this time I was immersed in putting together final lectures and grading work for students in the class I co-taught at AMBS. I was also setting up my last spiritual guidance sessions with my young directees, and finishing up my volunteer work at Belmont Mennonite Church. I was also busy packing with Alicia, figuring out where we would move, and how to make that happen. It was a rich, full, frantic, rewarding, frustrating time. 

We knew that moving back to Winnipeg would be a challenge. We knew that it would likely be difficult to find ministry positions, especially given that our internships were primarily done in Indiana. That's where we made relationships and connections surrounding our gifts in ministry so we knew that returning to Winnipeg would be starting over in a sense. Yet we had a clear sense that Winnipeg was the place that we needed to be. So we decided to give ourselves 6 months of sabbatical, of grace before beginning to really work at finding ministry work. That's not to say that we weren't keeping our eyes open, or looking for other employment, but that we knew it would take time and we wanted to make sure that we gave ourselves that time, rather than panicking the entire time. 

Well, 6 months came and went. And now 11 months. 

And it is difficult some days. I have very much enjoyed the time that I have had to be able to rest, to preach in various congregations, to do more random things that I might not have had time to do if I was employed full time. I have especially loved the opportunities to resource others either in person, or online as well as my time volunteering at the MC Canada Resource Centre. But it has been a time of mixed feelings, of wondering, of wrestling with questions of my calling and purpose. I would love to be able to just do ministry and never worry about income, but that's not really reality. It's hard to make ends meet on honorariums and I have been endlessly thankful for the help my parents have provided in that regard, as well as for the income Alicia has had through her job in administrative work. And it is not easy to fight the feelings of guilt that arise from being unemployed. I look at job postings and have applied for some, but realistically I am trained for ministry, not administration or sales. I don't know how to use the computer programs they require, I don't have the short course from the community college that is a prerequisite, and it's dishonest to leave off my resume that I have a Master's degree. So I sit in the odd space of being completely unqualified, and yet overqualified at the same time.

And I find myself getting antsy and looking forward. But forward to what? I am completely unsure. Of late I have sensed that I am to pray for my eyes to be opened to the bizarre and the audacious. That God's plans for me are yet to be revealed, and may in fact take shapes that I have never even imagined. And at times I feel filled to overflowing with hope, and at other times I just despair of ever being able to minister in ways that truly use my gifts. 

After a year in Winnipeg, I confess to feeling far more confused than when I left Indiana. 

So I wait with hope, and with eyes and heart open to the bizarre, whatever that may be.