American Beauty II

Some highlights from my recent whirlwind trip to the States (really, five days is barely enough time to get the plane food out of your system). In short, the purpose of the trip was two-fold: remember the uAg (see earlier entry)? Well, I got to spend a little time with her. Actually, loads of significant time, but nowhere near enough. Because some of you are anxiously awaiting a revealed identity, here is a picture:(the one on the right).

The second purpose of my trip was to attend the Global Missions Conference, a pretty major event in the life of our missions agency that takes place every three years, in Atlanta. Somewhere around a couple thousand people spent the weekend at the Hyatt attending seminars, plenary sessions, worshipping, conversing about missions stuff...you know, what you would expect from a conference.  

Funny thing is, twice when we were there in the big group worship/lecture thing they asked all the current missionaries to stand up. Both times the people next to me had to prod me to stand, not because of some sense of modesty or even my usual failure to be attentive, but because it still hasn't occurred to me that I am one of those missionaries. I think I am still operating day by day under the notion that missionaries are super-spiritual people who do amazing things all over the world. All of them have great and powerfully moving stories and really love Jesus, a lot. So it never occurred to me to stand up. When I did, I realized that I was standing unworthily among the great. If I could have provided disclaimers somehow, or if I could have put myself in some other category, I would have. If only I had been prepared with a sign that began, "I work on the mission field, but..."

Other moments of note from the trip:

I was offered a job at my old school...starting tomorrow.

Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits at Larry's Restaurant and Grocery with Hudson, Connor, and Jonathan.

I got my driver's license (to understand the significance of this, you should look back to one of my posts from June or July.

I got to drive Wallace (my old truck) again.