Following the Way

“Moses. Isaiah, Jeremiah are all people from the Old Testament who were reluctant to to take their call. At first calling, they did not want to follow God. Jesus invites some friends to come and “follow” him

Shirley and I visited with my childhood friend , Pippa, and her family on Sunday night. Pippa moved into Niagara-on-the -Lake two years after our family had move their from St.Catharines. We graduated from high school in 1977, and then our lives took on  different roads. Pippa got an architecture degree, but did not find good work. She got a call from CUSO, wondering if she wanted to go to Nigeria to work with the government in Architecture . She served there for a year, and then she traveled the world. During that time, she visited us in Thailand , while we were working there for Mennonite Central Committee.

We then lost touch for a few years. In the meantime , she got a degree in nursing, and looked for work. She ended up in Afghanistan for , I think, eleven years . This is where she met her future husband. They lived and worked when it was really dangerous in Afghanistan. They worked for Save The Children and Care, and a few other NGO’s . then she got a job with the United Nations.

I found her again in 2003, and she was working for UN World Food Program in Georgia ( the birthplace of Joseph Stalin ). This was post Soviet time , and Georgia had been on its own and struggling in everything. She was in charge of keeping large parts  of the population fed everyday. I visited her there for two weeks, and experienced her work there.

From there she went to Syria ( before the civil war ), and was in charge of feeding all those Iraqi refugees who were at risk because of the US war on Iraq. Next place on her journey was South Sudan and Ghana. I began to work for MCC late last year , and was looking at the results of the Nepali earthquake of 2014, and came across Pipoa again. She was still with  World Program Program working in Nepal . She had arrived there just before the earthquake. Their house was not livable after the earthquake , and have since moved a few times in Kathmandu, the capital city . What an amazing life Pippa has lived after she left Niagara. She has two lovely children that were born when Pippa was in her forties.

After we had supper together Sunday evening, she said that she had always admired me because I had wanted to work for the church and be a minister all my life, and and stayed on course. I always saw her, as being able to adapt to the circumstances around her, to do good work among refugees and other people who were at risk. I admired her tenacity , and her ability to live and work in new cultures.

I do not think we would change our lives, but we are able to appreciate the different callings that we have had in our lives.  Do not conform to what others might do, but follow your calling and stay the course, even if that course changes all the time.