Mission Post #21 - Preparing for a different world

Sr. Darlene wrote to use this week and shared some thoughts with us as we make our final preparations for the trip to Missouri.

"Now that the wedding preparations are behind you, you can truly begin to prepare yourselves for the journey and life God has called you to here in Pemiscot County.  I urge you t open yourself in prayer, asking that you will find the many gifts God has placed here for you.  I join you in this prayer.  We must always remember that our lives must also be transformed by the God who calls us and by those he calls us to be with.

 . . . Even though you are not coming to a foreign country, you are entering a different culture and way of life.  We will discuss this when you get here.  In mission, we are called to be both Martha and Mary.  We must learn to achieve a balance between the two ways of being.  We must not always seek the business.  We must learn to treasure the quiet and the time to be totally present to Christ in prayer or in sitting with another. . . ."

I must admit, I've thought of the different world I am committed to stepping into.  I've been to this small town on the Mississippi only twice; both times were short visits but I felt the huge cultural divide even then.  There is a slowness of pace that I'm very unfamiliar with.   The manner of speaking is so slow that I actually found myself slowing down my listening in order to not get ahead of the direction of conversation and then discover I've made a wrong turn.  The relationships between people seem to be more formal and conform to patterns of interaction that are not at all casual. 

Don is very familiar with this world.  I am not.  I told him yesterday, as we discussed it, that my first couple of weeks there, I intended to keep my mouth carefully shut and my ears wide open.  I have a lot to learn and not to much time to learn it in.