Mission Update 1: The Calm Before

Hello everyone!

I am here at the Africa Inland Mission US Headquarters in Pearl River, NY. I just arrived today by Greyhound bus and my trip went fairly smoothly. Today, I mostly relaxed and rested before dinner, which felt very home cooked, although I eally am not home anymore. I ate with my short term coordinator; Na'im, the short term team coordinator; Rae, and a team of

missionaries that will be going through orientation with me before they leave for their mission field.

This place is very comfortable. The landscape surrounding it is very beautiful, but not distracting; which is important because this place is meant to help anyone leaving to focus and prepare for the journey ahead.

The journey ahead. That is foremost in my mind at this moment. The calmness of this place feels exactly like the calm before a thunderstorm. The kind that is both frightening and eternally exciting. The kind that changes the landscape around you by stripping away all, except for the strongest trees and the sturdiest houses. Taking away the brush that is no longer meant to exist and defining only the most entrenched objects that will never be uprooted. I believe this place will help prepare me to be as clay (Isaiah 64:8), so that I can be properly re-formed by the hands of the potter.

As I sit here, typing on my laptop, it is hard for me to describe all the emotions that are in me. I think that I am mostly excited because of the great jump my life is about to take; my own personal epic, if you will.

Thanks for everyone for your prayers and support. Thank you and God bless.

Love,

Tim Lang