Winding Roads

There is a winding street that serves as a short-cut on my way to pick up my "foster" daughter from school most days. It takes me by a house I lived in the summer I arrived in Eugene. It was open as a furnished rental for just five weeks, and after two weeks of couch-surfing, I jumped at the chance. It is in a part of Eugene that I have not stayed in touch with, so this route has brought my thoughts back to that season and place.

Twenty two years ago last month I quit my job in fisheries at Clemson University to embark on an adventure. A few months later, I landed in Oregon. I came with a naïve belief in God’s provision, heading west without a place to live, a job, or any real contacts, other than the summer program I was enrolling in to study linguistics.  I suppose I’ve been reflecting on that particular season in my life lately, because I am regularly driving by the house where I landed that first summer.

            I recall sitting in its darkening living room one evening, wondering what in the world I was doing there. The romance of the adventure had worn thin in that moment and I was desperately homesick. The shadows were lengthening as I sat on the floor with my back against someone else’s sofa in a room that shared none of my taste. I am not a materialistic person, so it surprised me that I missed my home—the things that were familiar to me, the security of the income I had left behind.

            By this time that summer I had by chance met Wes and Carol, and learned about this thing called McKenzie Study Center. My shaky faith paradigm was beginning to crack open in places. When I ran out of gas across town because I had no money to fill the tank, it triggered a crisis. It is somewhat embarrassing to admit this, but it showed me that I actually believed God would never let me run out of gas, because I was becoming a missionary and He would provide. That was the deal, right?

            Little did I recognize that since my reluctant conversion to Christianity, I had bought the package and established a quid pro quo arrangement with God. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. I had not yet to asked how this arrangement fit with the gospel of grace I had first been drawn to, the day that God had tackled me against my will. That day, I was immediately committed to the idea that God would do the changing, if any changing was to be done. In just four short years, I had traded that belief for an assumption that somehow my dedication was responsible for keeping me on God's good side.

With Wes and Carol and at MSC, I smelled something different. It looked like these folks didn’t buy the quid pro quo picture. I wanted to understand more. After my summer program was over, I surprised everyone including myself, and decided to stay.

            Ironically, God did provide. I soon had a job in fisheries just up the road in Corvallis, and a house to ship my stored belongings to, one that overlooked a beautiful pasture with a breathtaking view of the Coburg Hills. I took these events and others as signs, signs that God was directing me, though in a very different direction than I had anticipated. Within two years, I joined the staff of McKenzie Study Center. I spent the next eighteen years pursuing a calling that I knew was from God.

            It is no wonder the winding drive by that house brings me back to those days. In another unexpected twist, two years ago last month, I was asked to leave the ministry that I knew was given to me by God. It has been a painful parting. And yet I am certain that as God gives, He also takes away. I am on a different road now, similarly uncertain of what lies ahead. And driving by the little house in west Eugene reminds me that I have been here before. And it reminds me that God provides, though seldom what we expect.