And so it begins

I have sort of begun my internship with HOPE International. I am sitting in 30th Street Station in Philadelphia waiting to head out to the airport to be picked up. I am not quite sure how I feel about this coming trip. I think perhaps it isn't a trip but more of a job for three months. I think the three months is what gets to me. I have done three months traveling all around Europe. I have done three months participating in an intense internship of prayer. But I have not done three months in a relatively poor country working and living among the people. Oh,and they don't speak English. I woke up with a massive knot in my stomach and it hasn't gone away yet. This is not like me at all, to be so nervous. But I suppose I deserve it. For two years I have told people how my time at the monastery taught me how to rely on God. How He purposefully puts us in situations where we are forced to rely on. And for two years I have felt relatively relaxed. So, He says, practice what you preach.

Trouble is, no one is comfortable when forced into any new situation. I think this plays such a large role in economic development and why the Bible says there will always be poor amongst us. Consider this, full employment, from an academic standpoint, is considered to be when around 90-95% of those able to work are working. There will aways be people that while could work, chose not to. Why? Because they are comfortable where they are. As I struggle to remember how much I went through the months before I devoted a summer to prayer, I realize that my desires to stay home stem from a universal fact: I am a sinner. I desire situations of comfort because I am in control. God reacts and places me in such unfamiliar times, such as three months in the Dominican Republic and removes my god of idleness and comfort and forces me to replace it with Him.

Wow, what a way to start an internship.