The Fellowship

Today, I want to talk with you about Fellowship. Particularly the Fellowship portrayed in The Lord of the Rings. In the Fellowship of the Ring, there were many individuals working toward a common goal: the destruction of the One Ring. There were many characters, with many different roles.

It was Frodo and Sam’s job to get to Mordor and destroy the Ring in Mount Doom. They were the ones who could get past the orcs and fight the temptation brought by the Ring. Clearly, without Frodo and Sam, the Ring would not have been destroyed. But if it was only Frodo and Sam working, the goal would still not have been accomplished.

Three Years Ago

During my time at Geneva College, it was customary that a few senior classmen would share a message during the final chapel service of the semester.  A month or so before the end of the semester, I overheard that they were looking for some seniors to share.  I had no desire to stand in front of the entire school and speak; but I distinctly remember praying that if someone directly asked me to speak, I would agree.  Well, as you may have guessed, shortly afterward a member of the chapel committee walked up to me and said, “Hey, Dan, do you want to share something during the senior Chapel service?”  Hurmph.  “Okay.” I said, albeit reluctantly.

I graduated in 2013, so this all happened several years ago, and I vaguely remember my presentation.  At one of the chapel services earlier in the year, we learned about human trafficking and slavery. I choose to reflect on the choices that we make, and how whether knowingly or not, we oppose or support human trafficking.  All in all, I thought my talk went well and a few people told me shortly afterward that they would no longer be purchasing items from companies who supported or used slavery.  But it seemed as though that was the only reason I was prompted to speak, and it made me wonder if what I said really did make an impact.

Back to Being a Baby

Carolyn and I are two weeks into our four-week intercultural communication course; this is the course that meant to is prepare us to live in a brand new culture.   The further we get into this course the more we are learning how much we have yet to learn.  We are continually learning of precautions that I had never considered, and if you remember my blog post from last fall, you may know that I like to plan for everything.  So being told of many things that I did not plan for feels mildly alarming.
 
I have come to the realization that Carolyn and I are more or less going to start over and become babies again.  When we arrive in Romania we will not know how to buy food to eat, and when we do find food we may not know how to cook it.  We will need to learn how to find a place to live, and pay our bills – we won’t even know what bills we need to pay much less how to pay them.  We won’t know how to hail a taxi or pay for a bus ride. (We will still know how to walk, so that’s a bonus!) We will have to relearn everything. So much for planning again.