Fullness

As I alluded in the end of my post about my first year, things began to grow in scale in my second year in Cairo. When people ask "how is Egypt" it is a very difficult question to answer because there are so many answers. It's always changing. It’s hot most days. It’s busy. It’s a growing experience. It’s a generic “good”. Really the only way to describe my time here is full. Life here is full.
I came back in August from a month at home to begin my new job. The church was beginning an intern program for our development and outreach ministry. D&O concentrates on meeting the tangible needs of people outside the walls of the church. I was to be an intern in this program, but I was also to be the Lead intern. This meant that I would not only be working directly with one of our outreach ministries but I would also be responsible for the personal development of the other interns. It’s sort of a first among equals type of position.

In the months that followed life filled up.

My five interns arrived and I was searching for the best way to lead them as they went about deciding how to best serve in the vast and needy community of Cairo.

I decided that my main focus and outreach would be to start an ESL tutoring program at a Sudanese refugee school. I was meeting with administrators, creating curriculum, teaching classes of beautiful children, and trying to find a way to make it all sustainable.

I was taking between 6 and 12 hours of Arabic classes each week.

Me and a few other people from the church were creating the beginnings of a new young adults ministry in the church. We were planning events and scrambling at services to get e-mail addresses from every 20 something we saw.

I started a small group for young adults.

I was leading a small group for the youth.

I was helping facilitate a seven week training for small group leaders among the adults in the church.

I was eating, breathing, not really sleeping, running, planning, dreaming, and flying. Life was full.
My responsibilities had gone from few to many, my small group of friends had exploded into a wealth of new relationships, my knowledge of this fascinating place was overwhelmed, and my brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare. Fullness brought new challenges. New challenges required more of me. More of me required more of God. There was no room for the insecurities that had caused restriction in the past. There was less time to deliberate and more need to take risks. There were new failures and new victories. There were peaks and valleys, some lasting months and some lasting minutes. It was sometimes good and sometimes bad and always life.
It remains that way. Life is still full. I’ll be leaving in June to return to the states and as I see my time here coming to a close I feel a need to consume all the fullness that is in this here. I want to suck the life out of this place.

I want to find better ways to teach my refugee students and a way to make sure that when I leave someone is there to take my place.

I want to enjoy every difficult and joyful growing experience with my interns and learn what it is to give my life for them.

I want to create a community of hope where broken and lonely young adults can find life within the body of Jesus.

I want the youths I mentor to be able to pursue God on their own and in their own unique way. I want my friends to know each day that I love them.

I want to possess every laugh, thought, and song fully in its moment. I don’t want to force life but to pursue it. Life will always happen on its own. I can’t control it. I can only take it in it’s fullness and let it wash over me. I want God to take all I have in this life as His own and make it complete in Him. He is the fullness I feel here. I want my life to be His. I want my life to be full. To pursue life is to pursue Him.