Just a quick overview of this post you are going to get the original story of why an exchange and why South Africa? The events leading up to my exchange! And some of my hopes and expectations, and a part of my vision and understanding of this trip. So you will have to pardon both my grammar and the length of this first post but hopefully after you read this you will have enough context to be able to follow large picture stories throughout this exchange!

So First off a little more context around me. Firstly you should know that I am a Christian Theologian. That is going to be a lot of where I write from get used to it. God for me is not inactive, it would defeat the purpose of Faith. (Let’s get a definition straight here I don’t mean our modern sense of ‘Belief’ the ‘I have faith in God’ Statement that actually means when you get down to it ‘I think that there is a God-like being that exists’ but rather when I talk about Faith and Belief it means that There is a God that is Real and is also Active within our world. He is active in ways that we often will not be able to understand particularly using the modern methods of science.) So that means that get excited as God is going to be a major character. Which is sort of the purpose of this blog. The stories that you will find in this blog, are here to tell you stories to get you inspired and thinking ‘what if’ sort of questions. Everyone is going to have their unique stories of what God is doing but I find that hearing other peoples stories helps to reinforce the truth of who God is.

I guess that kind of sets me up for a story. A crazy, crazy story that starts long before I have met many of you...

High School Grade 10; Spanish Language class; Something changes in me. I start becoming interested very heavily in international travel and study (In particular at this point in my life I am looking for language as the most important factor as a way of developing fluency in languages while gaining an interest in the cultures of places). So why now? Why South Africa? Don’t worry about it all these questions will be answered in due time.

So Fast forward with one more critical detail by the end of Grade 12 I decided that I was going to go to school for languages and I decided to do that I wanted to have my grade 12 french (Which I didn’t have yet). So I organized up a year and decided to take some time to travel and volunteer. So I went to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for 4 months (PS If you haven’t heard stories about it message me/ask me about it at some point in time when I get into your area). I got back and finished high school and met my wonderful Girlfriend Emily.

Fast forward to Semester One of Year two at Huron; Switching into a BTh Degree in Biblical studies studying Hebrew and exegesis as the majority of my classes. Something came up that semester. I think I was looking into exchanges but I wasn’t sure of whether or not it was an I want to go and do this thing for myself, or on the other hand if God was calling me into a something that I wanted. I think the application point that was hitting hard in particular is go back and look at what God has taught you. So I went to Huron Chapel one night after Bible Study and I sat and prayed and looked through some older manuscript bible studies that I had done. Soon I found the very first large group manuscript that I was involved in which was Genesis (It’s really funny I wasn’t really applying these things at the point of study too, too much but now it is an awesomely amazing set of texts. Check it out Gen 1-11, it may help to scratch out the preconceived titles and try to find the original breakup of the text). The thing that really struck me was in the first account of creation (for those of you who don’t know what I mean please read Gen 1-4 or so and tell me how many times God creates the world and If you want the theology of how two different Creation narratives can work together to shape and make a bigger picture of God Please e-mail me and I can hash it out for you). Anyways... In the first account of Creation, God (Elohim for those of you following Hebrew names) Starts by Seperating Light from Darkness, and Sky from Sea, and Land from Sea. Right days 1, 2, 3, then in days 4, 5, and 6 He does this really awesome thing of filling space for something. Day 4 he creates starts and the Celestial Rulers, day 5 Birds and Fishes and Sea Monsters, day 6 He creates all of the Land animals, creeping creepers, Crawling Crawlers, and Beastly Beasts. And Best of All he adds them into the orchestra of creation. He creates space then he fills it. Equally cool is the second account of creation where God creates a longing in his groundling for a partner fit to him. And then slowly builds that longing and fills it with exactly what God was intending. This is kind of my experience around exchange. God created space and a longing in me and said “Hey I created a longing in you and it is good, and I have presented you with the options and none have been good enough to fill it so now I will let you experience the full joy of this experience as I have intended it.”

So Basically at that point I was super excited and started looking for exchange opportunities, the thing was none of the schools I found filled that space. I was looking at options like St. Andrew’s, Leeds, and a school in New Zealand (Not that any of those spaces are inadequate for teaching theology in fact they have many a great programs and God can work at any of those spaces, like my friends Rachel and Alan who met at Leeds!) but they left me feeling empty as I considered studying justice theology in a relatively First World situation. (It does make sense to me to study Latin American Liberation theologies from a Scottish professor). Anyways at that point I stopped looking at those schools and returned to Huron Exchange options. And Within the next 48 hours I had found 3 theology programs at schools that I had just rejected because I couldn’t find info about theology from them. And at that point in time I was like HOLY $%!# God is provisional. So I trusted into his calling and applied for those three and got accepted. Oh and before I forget here is the crazy good story in all of this. So in January before I go in for my application God gives me a dream/vision saying “Come and See” so I was like sure I am in. I also went and asked my community for advice and they boldly called me into going for a year (Including my Girlfriend Bless her heart).

As second semester wore on I filled out applications and the expectations of a year’s exchange got swapped around to a year of Study abroad, to a half year exchange. But Hey it all worked out in the end.

And here I am sitting in Paris at an airport waiting to fly to Johannesburg. I will update you with more tails later on I am just getting a bit tired and wearing down.

Anyways one last brief thought to give some vision and excitement about this exchange. There is this really interesting thing that God tends to do. It looks slightly different every that it happens but it sure isn’t a new thing. It is kind of what God called the Israelite into after slavery for 430 years in Egypt. It is kind of like the prophets becoming desert people and eating from the bread that ravens brought. It is kind of like When Jesus went out to the desert for 40 days. Or more like the Early Church laying claims to the abandoned frontiers and wildernesses while they were persecuting. Or more accurately like the early Church Desert Fathers did When the roman emperor made Christianity a state thing. They leave into the wilderness and find out better the picture of What God longs to see from the Church. And so I go. Not because I know the brokenness of my Church, nor because I feel like being prophetic around the church in shaking it up. But Because God has called me to go. I have a lot of problems and slavery to work out of me, some of it developed from the society and the places that I have inhabited, some of it comes from the church that has surrounded me. The truth is that almost every human that lives is subjected to some form of societal slavery, or Church taught problems. So I go not to subjugate myself to them. But to learn from God about the truth of my situation, and where necessary and when I feel led to by the Holy Spirit I may speak truth about other’s situations. So yeah basically I am inviting you on a journey with me. So follow along, read with me and travel through my wildernesses and maybe together we will see the Kingdom of God.