honoring a mentor-friend: John Mogabgab

At Ken's Sushi with John Mogabgab during a quick, 24-hour visit to Nashville in December 2012.

I thought of John often this past summer and intended to call. I wanted to know how he and his wife, Marjorie, were doing; how his lovely elderly mother, Babs, was faring; what editorial projects he was working on; and more. And I wanted to update him on the parts of my life that don't make it into newsletters. It had been a year since my last State-side visit and keeping up well via email between in-person visits wasn't John's strong suit. So I planned to call. But a summer full of apartment-hunting, moving, travel, and work, added to the 7-hour time difference, meant I never got farther than transferring his phone numbers from my US phone into my French phone in preparation for a spontaneous chat.

The last of my biggest summer travels took me to Togo for a week in early August, then on to Abuja, Nigeria to visit a friend for a couple days, and finally to Lagos, Nigeria to visit another friend. In Abuja I'd been mostly internet-less, so I was happy to fire up my smartphone upon arrival chez my friend in Lagos and connect to their wireless internet. Once connected, Viber alerted me to new messages from my American friend Nicole who is now living in South Africa and used to work with John.

The first message, sent the day I left Togo, told me Nicole had recently learned that John was gravely ill. The second, sent the day before I received it, carried the unbelievable news that John Mogabgab was no longer residing this side of heaven. He and I would not be having the catch-up chat I'd been planning for months now.

:'-(    :'-(

Sometime in 2003-ish when I was slinging espresso at a Music Row Starbucks in Nashville and was beginning (barely beginning) to launch my freelance writing career, I discovered that several of our customers worked at the Upper Room publishing house down the street. We began talking writing when they came for their daily (or more than daily) coffee. Finally, I one day gathered up the courage to ask Steve, the publisher at the time, if I could have a formal meeting with him sometime when I wasn't on the Starbucks clock.

He readily agreed. And when I arrived for the meeting, I discovered that he'd made plans to introduce me to many of his editors. That meeting led to a long-standing relationship with and a variety of work for the Upper Room. Unfortunately, John Mogabgab, the editor of Weavings spiritual formation journal, wasn't available that day.

But no matter, because when John next came to Starbucks, he apologized in his gracious, gentle way and suggested that we meet for lunch soon. We did. And what began as a one-off networking meeting morphed into a professional mentoring relationship morphed into a life mentor-friend relationship morphed into being an almost surrogate parent for a girl who lived not-so-near her actual parents.

Thus proceeded years of regular lunches together. Sometimes John's equally exceptional wife, Marjorie, was able to join us. Sometimes not. Most often we met in the cozy book-lined dining room at Alektor Café, a café-bookstore-gift shop run by an Orthodox priest, until it closed/relocated. Afterwards our usual choice was Ken's Sushi, where lunches with John transformed me from sushi novice to sushi lover.

John has been one of my most consistent mentors during the past decade of the windy vocational path I travel, the one that finally brought me to France two years ago and is often filled with big decisions that don't readily follow worldly wisdom. With his height and girth and thick gray-white hair and beard, his physical presence is strong, yet it's tempered by a scholarly gentleness. His relationship with the Lord runs deep but never descends into spiritual platitudes. His counsel is wise and never pushy. He acknowledges the challenges and paradoxes of faith but never seems disturbed by them.

One of my favorite quirky traits of John has been his capacity to reference just the right pearl of wisdom at just the right moment from just the right saint/great thinker/religious leader. Partly I'm enamored by it because remembering quotes is not one of my talents. I always picture his head as containing a giant quote Rolodex that automatically whooshes around (with appropriate Rolodex card-flipping sound included) and falls open to the perfect bit of wisdom for whatever I'm wrestling with. Part of what was beautiful about this quirk is the way it subconsciously reminded me that the beliefs I claim didn't just spring up yesterday. Along with John and all these others that he could quote, I'm part of a long, world-wide lineage.

Courtesy of my un-talent, I can't quote most of the great things John said to me over the years, but one question--a simple one, really, yet a profound one--that occasionally pops before me again at important crossroad moments and that I hope I never forget is this: "What can you do with your whole heart?"

That's a question I hope to continually hold before the Lord, pausing in thankfulness for John's influence in my life when I do.

---
John, I'm sad that my impending visit to Nashville won't include another visit with you! But thank you for your gracious generosity to me and for letting God work through you to give to me. Thanks for sharing your life and thus being a marker of God's faithfulness in mine.

happy reunions

Since returning from Africa, I've been asked fairly often whether it's been difficult to readjust to American life. Generally, my answer has been "no." I'm apparently adaptable enough that I can recognize that life there and here are different from each other without really being thrown by it. This week, though, I've discovered a bit of readjustment that has been trickier than I expected: the shift from the mindset of guest to the mindset of resident.

I hadn't realized quite how deeply eight months of living in the always-flexing and always-trying-not-to-be-a-nuisance non-rhythms of the traveler have infected my person. It's turning out to be a less-than-immediate shift in my head as I work to let myself settle into a place again. The challenge is less in settling into my city and more about settling into a particular abode. It just feels so foreign to have furniture and large amounts of belongings again (these things really belong to me?!), to sit down at the same desk every day to do my work, to really unpack. I’m excited to cook my own food, for example, but I'm struggling to figure out where to start in a kitchen again when I'm not just offering to help someone else with the meal they're preparing. What did I used to fix for myself when I was choosing and preparing my own meals? I'm struggling to remember.

The positive side of settling, though, is showing me just how real it's been that working while traveling is really challenging. Efficiency is nearly impossible. God's generously provided me with a great living situation with my friend Alice. My room boasts a window perfectly situated for my small desk. I get to look outside, watching people come and go (which keeps me from feeling so lonely when work keeps me holed up) and enjoying the currently white-blossomed, soon-to-be green-leafed Bradford pear tree. It's awfully nice when you're in a stage where you're a beggar who can't be a chooser and you end up with an inspiring view out your window in a room that feels good for working in (the feel of the room is quite essential to productive writing, mind you). I'm so excited and hopeful to begin to slog through to do lists that have been taking way too long to get through and to work on writing projects that are part of my processing of these past months of experience.

Perhaps partly increasing the challenge in resettling is the reality that I finally know I'm not resettling here for very long, so there's still an aspect of temporary to it all. I expect to be in Nashville only through the end of June, but that's still long enough to practice "being" for a few months. And readjustment issues aside, I'm really excited to relish these next months in my city. Now that I know where I'm going (defined loosely) I can relax and enjoy where I am. And I can enjoy where I am better because I know that rather than boxing me in it's launching me out.

Because of being in one place, I can finally begin to soak in and sort through the experiences of the past eight months, particularly the four of them that were in Africa. Up to this point, I've felt like the trip wasn't really over because I've still been traveling. And even though I'm pausing for a stretch of time, I actually feel like the trip still isn't over, because I feel like four months in Africa was really just the beginning of a new season of life. In this new season, I'm working as a full-time freelancer with no other sources of income, and I'm exploring cultures and living into this part of my life that's been waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for the God-ordained moment to bloom. There's such a sense of energy and momentum and celebratory life in this part of this season; these are the things that cover over the awkwardness of readjustments.

As I reunite with the belongings that have been allowed to hibernate this winter, I’m discovering another bit of growth that Africa has brought for me. Traveling without so many things as I’m normally surrounded by has produced a healthy lessened attachment to my things. On a practical front that’s helpful as I embark on further purging; the purging is a bit less painful than it would be without that disconnection. On another front, though, there’s freedom. One of my lifelong challenges has been letting other people use my belongings. Perhaps it came from being the big sister of little siblings who might break things they borrowed or from living with people who are less careful with things than I am. Who knows. Whatever the reason, it’s plagued me. I’ve wanted to be generous with my belongings and have appreciated the generosity I’ve benefitted from when I’ve borrowed someone’s ladder or book or paintbrush. But, though I’ve improved over the years, I’ve continued to struggle. I expect the struggle’s still not over, but these months of being a traveler have certainly provided a bit of breakthrough.

As for what’s next, here goes the announcement I’ve been hinting at: I’m making plans to move to London this fall, in mid-September, in order to continue living cross-culturally as a writer and mostly because as much as I can understand His voice that’s where God’s directing me to go. I’m slowly getting used to saying with some level of confidence that this is what I’m doing. But, I suppose it could still fall through. My freelance life has taught me not to live in the world of the definite until after the thing has happened, and my language about future plans tends to reflect that.

In addition to that big news, I’m also planning to spend most of July in Haiti working with some MAF missionary friends to do what I did in Africa. I had to figure out what was happening with England before I could figure out Haiti, so I haven’t talked about it much, though it’s been sliding around in my grey matter (that would be brain not hair—yet!) for months.

There are many details to work out on all these fronts. Those will come. For the moment, I’m first relearning how to live in a place. It’s an important thing to relearn.

emptying suitcases. woohoo!

Greetings! Just a quick update for now to let you know I'm finally in one place for a little while. Traveling is wonderful but so is unpacking. ;-) For the first time since last July I'm actually settling into a room for longer than 3-4 weeks (most of the time my stays have been two weeks or less). I'm looking forward this weekend to moving some of my very own furniture over to my new abode off Nolensville Road in Nashville, where I'm living with my generous friend Alice. It's quite amazing to shift gears in my head from being a constant guest in people's homes to living in one again. I'm excited to cook for myself and use my own towels! I suppose it's true that traveling helps you appreciate the simple pleasures of life.

Nashville's blooming Bradford pear trees and other flora are announcing that spring is here. It doesn't seem time for it yet, but that's because I still feel like it should be fall. My timing's still a bit off seasonally. I'm glad to welcome spring, though. And glad to be in Nashville for it.

Plans are afoot, but I'll wait for a future post to announce them. Stayed tuned. All signs are saying that more adventures are still ahead!

meeting england

Just wanted to let you know I've been continuing my traveling ways in England the past couple weeks. Somehow it just didn't feel quite right to post an England post here on my Africa blog. This time, anyway. Instead, I decided to give the post to my other blog, the one that's been languishing away from lack of attention these past months. So, if you're interested in England or in spires or in how England and Africa are linked in my life, brew a nice cup of tea and go read along on my other blog. Cheers!

where in the world did 2007 go?

Or perhaps I should say, Where in the world did I go in 2007? As the clock launches us into a new year, I find myself wondering, Where in the world will I go in 2008?

After spending Christmas week with my siblings and their families, I've traveled with my parents back to their home in Kansas. It's good to be here and to feel like it's the closest I've currently got to a physical home. Even though I didn't grow up in this house and don't know which kitchen cupboard holds glasses and which one holds bowls, at least the bowls and glasses inside the cupboards are the ones I grew up drinking and eating out of.

I've unpacked my clothes, and tomorrow I'll start sorting through files and bills and other fun things. Nothing like celebrating the arrival of a new year with file folders! Yippee!

This is a thick time of life. There's so much opportunity, yet so much to be done in order to capitalize on it. There are so many unknowns, yet I don't want to rush too quickly through to the other side of them, back into the known (though my life tends to linger mostly in the unknowns even when things are in order).

I'm glad for the short days this time of year and glad that we get to live in Advent and Epiphany during the dark, cold season, in contrast to my African friends. Somehow those conditions outdoors are good for cozy reflection and prayer indoors.

It's been good to be with family, to have them ask me about my travels, my impressions, my experiences. It's good to talk about it. Yet, I understand somewhat what some of my missionary friends in Africa said about how hard it is to explain things to people, how hard it is for people who've never been to Africa to understand stories about Africa. But I guess that's probably true of anywhere.

Now that I've reached a place I'll get to sit still in for a little while (though this month is sure to speed by faster than I was when I got my last speeding ticket ;-) ), I'm able to better feel the yearning to go back to Africa some day, more than once and hopefully sooner than later. But, it's not time yet, and I don't yet know what will be the particular context for my return trips.

These past months have taught me some good and important things about the vocation and calling God's made me for. But, pieces of those lessons are still a little unclear, dangling just out of reach, not quite grasp-able. I look forward to taking the steps to reach those dangling things.

One of the little things I can do in the aftermath of my Africa months is pray for and with new friends across the ocean. It's challenging to stay informed sometimes, but it helps when I get emails from folks in Kenya asking us to pray for their country. More than one of the countries I visited during my travels was gearing up, like the U.S., for presidential elections. Kenya is the first of those countries to hold their elections. Many were hopeful that Kenya could be a model for fair and peaceful elections and governmental transition. However, that hope hasn't been met positively. Please join our Kenyan brothers and sisters in praying for their country, for an end to the chaos that has erupted following the vote counting, for tribalism not to divide people, for truth and peace.

May 2008 be a year that God's grace and truth and mercy are newly absorbed by places and people that have dark histories.

subject to change

Where I'll be when over the next few months and beyond is still being sorted out, but for those who want to know (and for those who don't but wander over here anyway!), here's the plan I've got so far:

• now - Dec. 22: livin' it up in Nashville
• Dec. 22-sometime after Christmas: finally catching up with the fam in East Tennessee, the land of my birth
• sometime after Christmas-sometime in late January: keeping my parents company at their Kansas digs
• late January/early February: back to Nashville for some work and a "report from Africa" gathering of some sort
• February: some traveling for such purposes as scouting out future options and saying thanks to supporters
• March-ish until sometime: livin' it up in Nashville

I appreciate your prayers as I also pray and listen, seeking to hear where and to what God's leading me next. I plan to continue freelancing, but beyond that the road ahead's wide open. I've got ideas, but they're not quite blog-worthy yet. Mostly, I'm praying I'll be a good steward of the opportunity I've got to move almost anywhere or to stay where I am, the opportunity to re-evaluate and make an intentional and hopefully obedient decision.