how surreal...new globalites and a different life!

Yesterday I attended church at St. Andrews. This time when I walked in and saw a bunch of blonde-haired young Americans I stopped dead in my tracks and thought, “Oles!” Indeed, the St. Olaf College’s Global Semester program had arrived! It was such a surreal morning for me. As I was sitting in worship I couldn’t help but feel strange-- it was like I was experiencing life on the outside looking in. Here I am in Egypt, sitting behind a group of students who are going through the same experience I did two years ago. I felt like two worlds were colliding together in another world. I mean, as I sat talking with the Oles after church we bonded by talking about Manitou Hill, professors and students we know, and emotions we had shared. Part of me felt like I was so much a part of them, and yet part of me felt like I was miles away. Not only have I graduated, but I also experienced Global with an entirely different group of people, and I had to remind myself that this group is not the same. Even though we could laugh about the tour guide who always asks us to remember our International Student ID Cards or joke about the man outside the Cosmo Hotel who yells “Yankee Doo-Doo!” every time we walk by, it’s now their experience, not mine. Then I thought about how much has changed in just two years. Two years ago when I was in Cairo I would NEVER have thought I’d be here again, living and working as a missionary for a year. I thought about how much I’ve learned, how much I’ve changed, and how much different my life is now compared to how it was then. It was both exciting and scary, and I don’t really know how else to describe it. Ah…funny God. J