Ruth With InterVarsity Link: Storms of Life

On Monday, June 24th, our Link group joined the rest of the new staff who are going to be serving in the US at the Best Western, Inn on the Park, in downtown Madison. Corina and I got to stay being roommates and I got to see Jess and Alyssa again! Jess is the IV staff worker for my alma mater, the University of Mary Washington. Alyssa is a fellow alum from UMW who is now on staff with IV in New Jersey. Our hotel was right on the capitol square and very close to State Street where all the main restaurants and shops are in Madison. On Saturday, there was a farmer's market ten paces from the front door. Our group had free time to explore every afternoon in between sessions of studying scripture, and learning more about how to be a good InterVarsity employee. We also made numerous trips to the NSC (National Service Center), the headquarters for InterVarsity. From there, we made phone calls as well as got introduced to all the different departments for lots of fun goodies, including so many free books the bottom of my suitcase was lined with them!

On Sunday, it was time to leave. We were all commissioned on Saturday night with a great time of dinner, celebration, and prayer at a local church. Then, we all said goodbye. My flight on Sunday from Madison to Detroit went smoothly, but once in Detroit I had a 3 hour layover before I could leave for Dulles. Unfortunately, my flight was eventually cancelled! I believe due to thunderstorms, but I'm not sure. I spent quite a long time talking to a customer service agent before it was confirmed that I could not get to DC that night. She did get me a hotel room though and booked me a flight for Monday. This meant that I had to miss work and that I didn't have my bag as they kept it at the airport, but I at least had somewhere comfy to sleep as well as free breakfast! I hung around in Detroit airport until Corina came through on a later flight to Reagan. She and I were able to buy dinner with the food voucher Delta airlines had given me and I watched her get on to her plane before taking the hotel shuttle to another Best Western.

This whole orientation we have spent a lot of time talking about cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, and personality types so that we are more aware of ourselves when we go to live in another country/culture. Yet, these things are valuable skills for coping in our own! A cancelled flight in an unknown city was just one more test on the path to becoming more prepared to live interdependently as a missionary. And similarly to when I studied abroad and had to get around England for the first time without my parents, I realized, I can do this! I can work to get a flight, to get a hotel, to leave my bag, to find the shuttle. When things don't seem to go according to the plan, I am never alone! As the song says, the God of angel armies is always by my side.

In a culture that prizes independence, we read in the Bible that dependence on God is what truly matters. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses was concerned about the details. Where am I going? How are you going to save everyone? Do you realize I am not a great speaker? And God didn't answer Moses' questions he just made a promise, "I will be with you." For Moses, it should have been enough that God was with him even if the details were fuzzy. For me, it has to be enough that God is with me. And God is faithful, he has never let me down. He protected me throughout this whole situation and I believe that even if more things go wrong, he will be there still.