I haven't forgotten about you guys. I even got started on a couple of posts for this blog, which I've left incomplete for now. But it's not just this blog that's suffering neglect. I have friends I'm supposed to email back, or get back in touch with, or get together with, and I've been slow to follow through.
I think it's because the Cambodia trip is still eating at me. This summer my husband and I went on a short term missions trip to Cambodia for ten days, my first missions trip since I was in college in 1987. Ever since that first trip in '87, I've wanted to go back. The past twenty-one years I've invested a lot of time thinking and educating myself about foreign missions. I thought finally getting the chance to go to Cambodia would reignite a desire for missionary work and give me clearer direction about when and where that would take place.
Instead I've come back feeling less excited about it than before, and I guess I didn't expect I'd feel that way. I'm not less enthusiastic about missionary work itself. I understand the tremendous needs out there and saw them firsthand. I was inspired by the missionary workers I met who have given up everything to dedicate themselves to this task. For most of my life I've half expected that I'd be called upon to make those sacrifices myself. But now, after this trip, I'm no longer sure that God is confirming that path for me.
Twenty-one years is a lot of build-up to come to a conclusion like this, so right now I'm feeling a bit of a let down. But it helps to confront the hard facts of the situation, writing it down here, so that I can start making some progress in moving forward. Maybe when more of that progress is made, I'll feel up to writing again.
