Calling

Though I got home Tuesday, I have not been able to update until today. I spent the last four days visiting my parents in Virginia and my father has not completely embraced the computer age as of yet, he still has dial up. For those of you born in the last 20 years, the internet has not always been available on your phone or ipod. Back in the day, everything was dial up. Everytime you wanted to get on the internet, your computer would dial your internet provider over the phone line. This took a long time and was very slow. I think the only people who still have dial up are my dad and the people of Kenya!

I have mixed feelings about going home these days because my mother is suffering from Alzheimer's; it's very difficult to watch the people you love slowly lose their mental abilities. If there is any positive that has come out of my mom's condition, it's that it has brought the rest of my family closer together. Which brings me to my post for today. I am the second of four children. I have an older sister and a younger brother and sister. My youngest sister (we call her the golden child) is 12 years younger than me but probably the most like me (poor kid huh!) She has been teaching for about 10 years and this year will start a new teaching job at the alternative middle school. The alternative middle school is the place all the kids who get expelled from regular middle school go. They are the kids who bring guns to school, physically and verbally assault their classmates, etc. You get the idea, not the place most of us would look forward to teaching, but Amy can't wait. I don't know if she would use the word "calling" to describe what she does, but I would. I think my sister is just as much called to the kids in her middle school as I am to the people of East Africa. And, while she has no desire to work with the people of East Africa, I have no desire to spend my days with kids in an alternative middle school. In fact, I don't have any desire to spend my days with middle school students period! But that's what's great about God. He wires us all up different, gives us special gifts and talents, and the perfect job to fit our gifts and talents.

Have you ever looked around at all the suffering in the world and wondered why God would not do something about it? While I'm not positive, I'm pretty confident that with every problem in the world, God has gifted some of us and "called" some of us to meet that need. Maybe the problem is not with God, but rather with us and our not fulfilling God's call for our life. Something else I am absolutely confident of is that there's a group of kids in Northern Virginia that are going to be better off because my sister has answered the call. I am also confident that somewhere in the world, there is a group waiting for you to answer your call and when you do, you will find great satisfaction and fulfillment, and people will be blessed. So, go find your calling and answer it!
Please.